USA: Why US acquisitions fail to pay for British purchasers.

West is the obvious way to go - so many things in common ... language, culture, an open market - all too easy. Helen Kay.

The old adage "Marry in haste, repent at leisure" is one that British business would do well to recall. A few years ago the fashion for cross-border mergers and acquisitions led many a would-be international player to embrace an American bride with an ardour that most must now be regretting. Indeed, the corporate wedding bells which peeled out for Ferranti, Saatchis and Beazer, to name but a few, have on occasion sounded more like their death knell.