Many U.S. brands are actually European-owned

Let's imagine a typical American couple -- we'll call them Bill and Betty Yankee -- using a long weekend for an all-American vacation.

Bill, an engineer at Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. in Upstate New York, and Betty, a clerk at Casual Corner, fill up their Jeep at the Amoco station, pop a Dave Matthews album into the cassette player and drive all day, except for a quick lunch at Burger King. They stop for the night at a Holiday Inn outside Pittsburgh, Pa., where Bill smokes a couple of Lucky Strikes and watches "A Beautiful Mind" on pay-per-view, while Betty curls up with a bottle of Snapple and the new Philip Roth novel she just received from the Literary Guild.

The next day, they get some cash at a Mellon Bank ATM, fill the tank at a Shell station and drive to Chicago. There they meet daughter Barb, a copywriter at the Leo Burnett advertising agency, who proudly shows them the ad she's written for Taster's Choice coffee. Barb's husband, Bob, a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, is delighted with the Brooks Brothers necktie his in-laws brought him.

It all sounds thoroughly American. But just about every product and service the Yankee family bought or used on this trip came from European-owned companies:

The family Jeep is made by Germany's DaimlerChrysler. The Amoco station belongs to the British oil company BP and the Shell station to Royal Dutch Shell, an Anglo-Dutch combination.

Burger King is owned by Britain's beverage giant Diageo, Holiday Inn by the big British hotel firm Six Continents. Mellon Bank is a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland.

The Oscar-winning movie "A Beautiful Mind" was released by Universal Studios, a subsidiary of the French media colossus Vivendi Universal, which is also a major operator of pay-per-view television in the United States. Philip Roth's publisher, Houghton Mifflin, is another Vivendi subsidiary.

The Literary Guild is part of the global empire of the German publishing giant Bertelsmann.

Lucky Strikes are made by London-based British American Tobacco.

Snapple is owned by Britain's Cadbury Schweppes.

Taster's Choice coffee belongs to Nestle SA of Switzerland.

'A globalized world'

It's fitting, in a way, that the Yankee family is constantly buying from European companies, because all four of the Yankees -- like millions of other Americans today -- are employed by European-owned firms. Niagara Mohawk is one of several American power utilities owned by Britain's National Grid. Both Brooks Brothers and the 1,000-store Casual Corner chain are part of an Italian conglomerate, Retail Brand Alliance. The Leo Burnett agency belongs to a French group, Publicis. Even a product as localized as the Chicago Sun-Times is owned by a company that is owned by the London media magnate Conrad Black.

"We live in a globalized world, and the products Americans use now can be owned by companies almost everywhere," notes John Palmer, a director of the European Policy Centre, a Brussels-based think tank. "Since we've seen the rise of some very powerful European multinationals in the recent past, it's only natural that these companies would extend their reach to the U.S."

The seemingly endless web of European connections woven through corporate America today reflects a surge of investment from Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Ireland, Scandinavia and other parts of Western Europe over the past decade. The long U.S. economic boom of the '90s drew hundreds of billions of dollars from European investors into American companies, according to the European-American Business Council, an advocacy group based in Washington.

'A great economy'

European investors say the flow of money across the Atlantic is a tribute to the strength and the promise of the U.S. economy.

"Why invest in the U.S.A.? It's simple," says Sir Ian Prosser, chairman of Six Continents PLC, the hotel firm with headquarters in London. "It's a great economy, and it produces great returns. Beyond that, the U.S. is so competitive that we know the things we learn operating there will help us in all our other markets around the world."

Money flows the other way, too. Through names like McDonald's, Starbucks or the Gap, U.S. investment is evident in virtually every European city. But similarly, the American presence is not restricted to American labels. Such famous European car brands as Volvo, Jaguar, Aston Martin and Land Rover are all owned by Ford Motor Co.

Even so, the United States is a net gainer, by hundreds of billions of dollars, from the back-and-forth investment. In 2000, according to Commerce Department figures, U.S. direct investment in Europe reached $650 billion; European investment in the United States was almost $900 billion. In economic terms, the big U.S. surplus in direct investment helps pay for the big U.S. deficit in international trade.

The European-American Business Council says that Europeans are the top foreign investors in 44 states, with Texas and California receiving the most funds. Some 3.9 million Americans work directly for European-owned companies, the council says.

American as apple pie?

Even the word "America" in the brand name doesn't imply American ownership anymore. The American Heritage Dictionary is another Vivendi property. RCA Records, once part of the Radio Corporation of America, belongs to Bertelsmann. There may be nothing more American than apple pie, but Mott's apple pie filling, along with Mott's apple juice and apple sauce, are British-owned.

Europeans have also put major amounts of money into American financial companies. In addition to Mellon Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland owns more than 15 other U.S. banking institutions. The respected investment bank once known as First Boston is now Credit Suisse First Boston, a unit of Zurich-based Credit Suisse Group.

Just over a decade ago, when Japanese companies were pouring large sums into U.S. businesses and real estate, the investment sparked fear and anger among many Americans concerned that Tokyo was snatching up America's corporate jewels. When Sony purchased Columbia Pictures, for example, Newsweek's cover featured the Statue of Liberty dressed in a kimono and the headline "Japan Invades Hollywood."

But the new wave of European investment has spawned almost no adverse reaction. Perhaps Americans are proud that foreign investors want to invest in their economy. Perhaps there is a growing public awareness of the process of globalization, with multinational companies buying and selling subsidiaries worldwide. Perhaps Americans just don't know how much of their daily commerce is done with European-owned firms. Or could it be that Americans don't mind if blue-eyed Christians from Europe buy their companies but are less comfortable when Asians do?

There's probably not much relief available for any Americans who are worried about the wave of European ownership. The only thing to do, really, is head out to a bar and drown your worries with a classic American drink like a "seven and seven."

Of course, this might not be a completely satisfying response, because both parts of that familiar cocktail come from British companies today: Seagram's Seven Crown belongs to Diageo, and 7Up is one of the flagship brands of Cadbury Schweppes.