Europe should adopt a common approach for vetting corporate acquisitions by foreign state-controlled investors, Angela Merkel, German chancellor, said on Wednesday, adding that she favoured a US model for joint European action.
So-called “sovereign funds” were often driven by “political and other motivations”, rather than the investment returns that drive privately controlled funds, Ms Merkel said in Berlin.
Ms Merkel indicated she would push the issue up the European Union agenda, listing it among her priorities for the rest of her term, which is due to end in autumn 2009. “This is a new phenomenon that we must tackle with some urgency,” she said.
The chancellor also said she “liked the US procedures” designed to vet possible acquisitions by such funds. “These procedures mean an acquisition is not automatic but allow for checks on the wider implications” of such deals, she said.
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