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The sign next to the main gate of the world's biggest sweet factory changed last autumn from 'Rowntree Mackintosh' to 'Nestle--Nestle Rowntree Division'. It took more than four years after 1988's bitterly contested takeover before the new management got around to making the switch. The local joke was that the maintainance department, in a spirit of historic loyalty, had somehow managed to mislay the order. But more probably the delay mirrored the Swiss multinational's general sensitivity as it set about absorbing and refashioning what had, for over a century, been the dominant corporate enterprise in the ancient city of York.
Its clinching L2.55-billion cash bid, which followed on from, and ultimately eclipsed, a rival offer from fellow Swiss confectionery maker Joseph Suchard, generated an almost unprecedented volume of criticism. The workforce, the Rowntree board, the City authorities, the Labour party, a phalanx of Tory backbenchers, backed by a vociferous assortment of chauvinists and patriots and the trustees of the many Rowntree charities, all vied with each other to warn of the dire consequences if the deal was allowed to go through.
The main considerations urged on the Government as reasons for it to block the sale, or at least refer it to the Monopolies & Mergers Commission, were basically sixfold: (1) employment would be slashed. One MP angrily cited a Swiss newspaper report that Nestle planned a one-third cut in Rowntree's 5,000-strong UK staff. (2) Investment would be starved as the new owners systematically shifted production abroad, closer to export markets. (3) Research and new-brand development would wither away now that foreigners had acquired control of Rowntree's long-established labels, such as world-beating (and quintessentially British) fruit gums, KitKat bars, Polo mints, Black Magic and Quality Street assortments. (4) 'The end' would be written to Rowntree's long, proud history as a benevolent employer. (5) Decision-making, and senior management functions, would shift to Switzerland. That would be of permanent detriment to York. (6) Justice would be flouted if control passed, by way of an incontrovertibly hostile takeover, to a company whose own shares, by both Swiss law and the structure of its articles, were effectively bid proof.
To back up these arguments, the protesters took to the streets, political platforms and the corridors of power--but it was...