Selling off the best of British

THERE has been much teeth-gnashing over the thought that a great British institution, Liverpool Football Club, should be falling into overseas hands.

It may seem strange that anything as tribal as a football franchise should be attractive to investors in a far-off country like Thailand. But to pretend there is anything unusual about this is hypocrisy.

In a world of globalised finance scarcely a day passes without something quintessentially British being sold overseas. The nation's most emblematic hospitality group, the Savoy, recently fell into the hands of Irish investors.

Much of the City is occupied territory. Arsenal, in all but ownership, is a French club operating in north London and Manchester United's share register is dominated by offshore investors.

More important than all this is the loss of the nation's intellectual capital overseas. Pharmaceuticals and biotech have been a real winner for the British economy, attracting venture capital and developing world-class companies. But over a short period of time we are seeing some of the most promising of these being sold to overseas buyers.

The £1.5bn bid for Celltech by the little-known Belgium concern UCB may be enormously cheering for its big US-dominated shareholders Amvescap and Fidelity, but, as with the takeover of Amersham by America's GE, it means a loss of ownership and control overseas.

Both UCB and GE have made a point of emphasising that Britain will remain the focus for future research.

But one instinctively knows that when push comes to shove it will be easier for the new owners to cut future jobs and investment in Britain than in their home territory-where all the usual political pressures dominate.

There is an assumption that Celltech shareholders will cheerfully sell because the company's rheumatoid arthritis treatment, the attractively-named CDP870, may not turn out to be as effective as it has been cracked up to be.

UCB clearly views matters differently and can see the potential not just of a blockbuster drug, but a good research and development pipeline carved out of the best of Britain's biotech companies.

UCB may help provide Celltech with the marketing muscle to crack global markets. But this is a heavy price to pay for the loss of leading-edge technology to Britain.

Price pressure

THERE will be no great alarm at the tick-up of inflation in April. After all, a 0.4% rise, pushing the consumer prices index (CPI) up to 1.4%, looks no great shakes.

Yet at some time in the future this could be seen as a turning point in the cycle. Not so long ago, the great debate among analysts was whether Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, would be required to send a letter to the Chancellor explaining why the Monetary Policy Committee would be undershooting the inflation target of 2%. That no longer looks necessary.

With the fuel price effects just starting to feed through to the index, the likelihood is that next month the CPI could be at 1.4% to 1.5% and racing towards the 2% target. That is why the markets are betting heavily that after three rises in official interest rates since November to the current 4.25% there are more on the way in the coming months.

The oil price will form a central theme when finance ministers from the Group of Seven richest countries gather in New York this weekend to prepare for the forthcoming heads of government summit.

Gordon Brown is expected to lead an effort to persuade Opec to increase production at its next session and take some of the upwards speculation off the oil price. At close to $40 a barrel, the oil price is well above the informal target range of $22-$25 agreed in Prague a few years back.

Brown and his opposite number John Snow clearly recognise that rising oil prices could lead to climbing inflation and interest rates and lower growth. Not what Messrs Bush and Blair want in the run-up to their respective elections.

Mobile lift

COMING out from under the shadow of BT is doing a power of good for mmO2, the former BT Wireless.

Having wiped £10bn off its balance sheet in the previous financial year by writing down the cost of third-generation licences, it has bounced right back by making a real, pretax profit over the last 12 months.

Not to be left too far behind, BT is linking with Vodafone to launch a service allowing its users the chance to have a seamless fixedline and mobile service. It sounds great - if only BT can make it work.