UK prints a ticket to oblivion
HERE we go again. Domino Printing Sciences, based in Cambridge, may be the Domino’s that no one has ever heard of, but it is infinitely more important to the British economy than a pizza delivery service.
It is another of Britain’s littleknown technology champions where the management seemingly gives up the ghost and sells out to a foreign buyer.
One supposes that the shareholders, of which Schroder Investment Management is the largest with 9.6pc, will be rubbing their hands with glee at an instant 42.6pc premium to Domino’s six-month average share price.
Schroder should be praised for its past support and investment in an enterprise that has been one of the pioneers in developing the bar code printing technology that is now ubiquitous. The electronic printer has been an innovator in technology used by almost every major consumer goods company in the world.
The difference between the two Dominos is that one is about building Britain a high-tech, modern economy, something that has a hope of competing with Boston and Silicon Valley. The other is about being a service nation where scatterbrained young people on mopeds deliver cholesterol and other fatty foods directly to the front door.
No doubt Brother, the new Japanese owners of Domino Printing, will make all kinds of lovely promises about jobs and R&D staying in Britain, as well they should. Moreover, with a size around five times of that of the UK firm they can promise the investment that it needs to go to the next stage of development.
What is likely to happen over time, however, is that clever British-invented technology, command and control systems, as well as taxes, will flow overseas.
When Lord Heseltine produced his report ‘No Stone Unturned in Support of Growth’ in 2013 it was hailed by Vince Cable and the Department for Business. Among the recommendations was that the takeover of technology companies should be properly scrutinised to make sure that promising R&D and clever enterprises remained in this country.
If Domino was unsure about how it was going to find the investment capital to take itself forward then there should be a mechanism for UK institutions to step in.
This is what old 3i was about before it converted itself into just another, and not very good, private equity enterprise. It might, for instance, be a classic case for a ‘Business Bank’ investment if it had the resources and the power to take equity stakes.
Instead, all we are expected to do is stand on the side-lines and shout hurrah. When all we are left with is Pizza Hut, Pizza Express, Domino’s and other low-paying fast-food joints there will be few causes to cheer.
Gearing up
WHEN it comes to intellectual property, Britain has few enterprises as valuable as the BBC. Yet when the Corporation comes to commercial decisions it is fairly hopeless.
Of course no employee should go around throwing punches at colleagues. The idea, however, that because its star presenter Jeremy Clarkson is suspended the show cannot go on is daft. If the same principle were followed in London’s theatre land, Broadway or the Royal Opera House, productions would never go ahead.
Now fully owned by BBC Worldwide, after a buyout of the Clarkson share, the Top Gear brand alone is reckoned to be worth £50m. That is before we begin to estimate the value of programme sales overseas and spin-offs. So shutting it down for the final episodes of this season or longer should not be an option.
The reality is that much of what the BBC does should not be in the public sector at all.
There have been numerous proposals to sell off Radio One. There is currently a proposal on the table for the sale of BBC3 which the corporation is proposing to put online, where it will have a negligible audi- ence despite being popular among a younger, comedy loving generation.
Sitting atop this tree of commercial uncertainty is chairman of the BBC Trust Rona Fairhead.
With her experience of running the FT she might have seemed to be the ideal person to bring contemporary media and financial expertise to the Corporation and to modernise the trust. But the criticism she has encountered for her £500,000 ‘nonexecutive’ job at HSBC has seriously eroded her credibility.
Business people do come back from setbacks. Look at Tidjane Thiam at the Prudential. However, bringing commercial sense to the BBC, in the full spotlight of the media, could be a very different proposition.
Cuckoo in the nest
SWISS watchmakers think they have an answer to the Apple Watch.
The Swatch Smartwatch, for instance, plans to include a chip which allows contactless payments, will have longer-lasting batteries and potential connectivity to Apple and Google devices.
All fine in theory. But they would do well to remember what happened to Sony, Nokia et al when Apple moved its cultish followers on to their turf. The watch stopped.