For Sale: America

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The least inhibited foreign bidders for U.S. corporate control these days are often the British. They have committed more than $22 billion so far this year to U.S. takeovers, successful or pending, in contrast to some $14 billion for all of 1986. The British invasion "is going this year at a frightening pace," observes Philip Healey, publisher of Acquisitions Monthly, a British trade journal. "Buying an American company is very much a vogue thing."

Many British raiders have shown remarkable pluck, taking on American companies many times their size. WPP Group, an upstart London advertising firm, bid $566 million in June to acquire JWT Group, the parent of Madison Avenue's lordly J. Walter Thompson agency. Last month another relatively small London outfit, the Blue Arrow employment-services agency, successfully bid $1.3 billion to take over Milwaukee-based Manpower, the largest American temporary-labor placement firm.

Perhaps the most successful British buccaneer in America is the canny, soft- spoken Sir Gordon White, 64, chairman of Hanson Industries, the U.S. investing arm of London's Hanson Trust conglomerate. Hanson employs more than 35,000 workers in the eight U.S. firms it has acquired since 1973. Among the prizes: SCM, manufacturer of Smith-Corona typewriters, and Endicott Johnson, the shoe retailer. White's current target is Kidde, a maker of products ranging from Farberware kitchen utensils to Jacuzzi Whirlpool Baths. Hanson has made an offer for Kidde, and a successful deal would double the firm's U.S. employment roster. So far White has spent $2 billion on his acquisitions.

The Dutch come right behind the British in their direct investments in U.S. companies. The Dutch-British Unilever consumer-products combine spent $3.1 billion last February alone to acquire Connecticut-based Chesebrough-Pond's. The deal gave Unilever ownership of such American brand names as Ragu spaghetti sauce, Prince tennis rackets and Vaseline petroleum jelly, along with Q-Tips and Pond's cold cream. Last week the Dutch electronics giant Philips struck a deal to swallow its North American subsidiary for more than $600 million, a move that will give the European conglomerate all rights to several famous American brand names: Norelco, Magnavox and Philco.

Canada has the highest levels of foreign, chiefly U.S., ownership of domestic enterprises of any major industrial country. Now the Great White North is striking back. Canadian direct investment in the U.S. has jumped from $12.1 billion to $18.3 billion in the past six years, with much of the increase in real estate and retailing. Last fall Ottawa-based Tycoon Robert Campeau swooped down on New York City to make a $3.5 billion buyout raid on Allied Stores, a 690-store retail chain with holdings that include Brooks Brothers and five major U.S. shopping centers.