British companies spent £0.2bn on 10 acquisitions abroad in the first quarter of 2010 according to the ONS, £1bn less than the last quarter of 2009. It is the lowest value since records began in 1987. Expenditure on UK companies by UK companies was £1bn, £1.4bn less than Q4 2009. There were a total of 52 acquisitions. Foreign companies spent £14.3bn on 41 acquisitions in the UK during the quarter.
The 10 overseas acquisitions by British companies are included as they have values over £1m. The ONS used to use a threshold of £0.1m until recently and therefore there will be a discontinuity in the statistics. The 4 disposals of companies abroad by UK companies totalled £2.3bn and included the disposal of Rio Tinto Plc of Alcan Packaging Businesses for -£1.2bn and Rio Tinto Plc of Alcan Packaging Food American Division for -£0.8bn. Xstrata Plc disposed of El Morro SCM for -£3bn. The largest transaction in the UK by foreign companies was the acquisition of Cadbury Plc by Kraft Foods Inc of the US. One significant transaction in the UK by a British company was the acquisition of Standard Life Bank Plc by Barclays Plc for £0.2bn.
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