U.S. investment in Europe

from a special correspondent In the February 27 issue of Newsweek, under the title "The Great American Purchase", Senior Editor Arnaud de Borchgrave describes European concern at the invasion by American capital, He cites the example of le Directeur General, Banque de Commerce, Bruxelles, whose "European dress and faultless French" conceals the fact that he is an American and a Vice President of New York's Chase Manhattan Bank, which just happens to own a 50% interest in the Banque. "The number of financial beachheads opened up and the amount of industrial high ground already captured in this invasion is staggering to behold, Chicago's First National Bank has bought a stake in Holland's big (50 branches) N,V, Slavenburg Bank, Late last year, Paris's Banque Mobiliere et Industrielle changed hands; it now belongs to New York's Blyth & Co. And Chase Manhattan, thanks to a steady diet of take-overs, has become the second largest commercial bank in all of France," "Europe's bursting assembly lines, too, are increasingly apt to be owned by Americans, Companies controlled by Detroit now build more than half the automobiles manufactured in Britain and 30% of all Western European models, More than half the drugs supplied to Britain's National Health Service come either from American subsidiaries or directly from the United States, ° « e e ITT, the largest (100,000 employees) U.S. firm. in Europe, has cornered 30% of Europe's telephone market; IBM make well over half the Continent's computers, and General Electric and Honeywell account for most of the rest. Even the French perfume industry is beginning to topple ....e. Revlon has absorbed both Balmein and Raphael; Pfizer owns Coty; Max Factor owns Corday; and this week the famous Parfums Carons is likely to sell a controlling interest to A. H. Robins Co,, a pharmaceutical firm in Richmond, Virginia." " . « « « The Surge of American ownership in Europe is growing at the astounding pace of $11 million a day - or $4 billion a year, In 1064, when the American business stake in Europe passed the $12 billion mark, most experts predicted it would soon level off, Today, it is about to top $20 billion and is still climbing. . ... [Everything European is dwarfed by the mastodons of American manufacturing, backed by the resources of the most opulent money market in the world, In a number of cases, European companies have opened their doors to American ownership only because there seemed no way to raise the funds they needed within Europe," ". « » » An increasing number of responsible Buropeans feel ominously threatened with the fate that has already befallen Canada, where 60% of all product~ ive capacity is U.S. owned, What bothers Europeans most is their belief that business decisions crucial to their economic welfare are being made by parent companies in Detroit, Phoenix and Los Angeles, where U.S, domestic factors are still the main consideration. . ... Many of the U.S. giants, for example, carry out all their basic research'at home, thus depriving their European subsidiaries of the stimulus of work on the technological frontiers," " « « e e There is also some gloomy talk of expropriation as the only remedy, Of late, responsible Europeans for the first time have begun to raise this specter in private conversation, ‘If European industry contimues to labor at a disadvantage', one of them told me, 'you will see the pendulum swing ~ back to left-wing governments and a wave of nationalisation sweep over Europe,"