Welcome Invaders

Though the world's most highly touted growth area is Europe's Common Market, foreign businessmen are increasingly aware that the U.S. itself--a thriving common market of 50 states--is rich in investment opportunities. The foreign investors are buying into U.S. firms, setting up U.S. subsidiaries and joining with U.S. companies in new ventures at such a pace that they have doubled their direct investments in the U.S. (to $7.8 billion) since 1950. Despite the chauvinistic French cry that Americans are moving in and taking over Europe's business, total private European investment of all kinds (most of it in stocks and plowed-back profits) in the U.S. since the Common Market began has actually amounted to nearly $4 billion more than new private U.S. investment in Europe.

Last week a combine made up of the Italian Fasco investment company and a subsidiary of the French Banque de Paris et des Pays Bas agreed to put up more than $14 million to buy a 20% interest in the Chicago-based food processor, Libby, McNeill & Libby, which only recently was criticized by De Gaulle's government for its plans to set up a major canning operation in the south of France. Presumably, Libby will now be welcome. In Hawaii, Tokyo's Kokusai Kogyo Co. is awaiting only Japanese government approval before handing over $8.7 million to buy Sheraton's luxurious Princess Kaiulani Hotel on Waikiki. London's Consolidated Gold Fields of South Africa. Ltd. is bidding $17.5 million to take control of St. Louis' American Zinc, Lead & Smelting Co.

Suburbia's Lawns. The biggest attraction the U.S. has for overseas companies is its highly developed market for sophisticated products; often foreigners buy into a U.S. company to get an established trade name and marketing network. One of the main advantages that Italy's Olivetti gained from buying the money-losing Underwood Corp. was its office-machine sales organization. Hopes of spreading its fertilizer on U.S. suburbia's broad lawns led Britain's Fisons Ltd. to buy an 80% control of Doggett-Pfeil Co., a New Jersey garden-supply producer. France's largest electronics firm, Compagnie Generale de Telegraphic Sans Fil, recently joined with Chicago's Hallicrafters Co. to set up Warnecke Electron Tubes. The French have the experience in making microwave tubes; the Americans will provide manufacturing and selling talents.

To get inside towering U.S. tariff barriers, West Germany's Minox has started to assemble its cameras on Long Island, and Italy's Montecatini chemical complex has put $20 million into a plant in West Virginia to produce its new Merkalon synthetic fiber. (The U.S. Government welcomes Montecatini's settling in West Virginia, and the decision of Japan's Sekisui Chemical Co. to build a factory to make polystyrene foam in Hazelton. Pa., because they bring jobs to areas of chronic unemployment.) The French aluminum producer Pechiney bought control of New York's Howe Sound to gain an exotic-metals business, and the Japanese want Sheraton's Hawaiian hotel because they anticipate a rush of Hawaiian tourist business from affluent Japanese.

Too Many Lawyers. Foreign firms easily catch onto the American way of doing business, but many--particularly the British, who are investing heavily in U.S. real estate--complain of the tangle of U.S. laws and of the need to have a battery of high-priced lawyers always on hand to interpret them. Snorted an exasperated Englishman: "In England, lawyers tend to be kept in their proper place as advisers." It may surprise U.S. businessmen, but foreign companies make few complaints about U.S. labor. In fact, Takuji Ohshimo, executive director of the Japanese-owned Alaska Lumber & Pulp Co., finds negotiating with U.S. unions a relief. "Their demands are strictly economic," he says. "This makes it very different from Japan, where labor disputes often get helplessly involved because of class-war cries and political hues."

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