Just as Vodafone’s takeover of Mannesmann was touted as opening Germany up to foreign capital, so last year’s hostile takeover of Pechiney has been interpreted as changing the rules for foreigners doing business in France.
A hostile bid for France’s leading aluminium producer, not to mention a transatlantic one, would have been unthinkable a few years ago. Yet Canada’s Alcan was able to carry off Pechiney with scarcely a squeak from the offices of the French prime minister and president.
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