Farewell National Champions. Bruegel policy brief 2006/04, June 2006

Veron, Nicolas. (2006) Farewell National Champions. Bruegel policy brief 2006/04, June 2006.

Abstract

Summary. Controversies over “national champions” in Europe raise the question of where exactly is “home” for a modern corporation. This survey of Europe’s 100 largest listed companies shows that their home market is increasingly Europe as a whole rather than any particular country within it. The share of European sales in their total revenue is almost identical, on average, to the share of US revenue for the US Top 100, at 65%. The share of their national (or, for smaller countries, regional) base is on a rapidly declining trend and stands at 36.9% of global revenue in 2005 against 50.2% in 1997. The geographical distribution of employees within the same companies appears to follow a similar pattern. In this group, German companies are among the frontrunners of both europeanisation and globalisation. Italian and, to a lesser extent, Spanish companies remain strongly biased towards their home market, though less than in the past. French companies have europeanised rather than globalised, while for UK-based companies, both trends have been simultaneously powerful.