Page 62 - Five Forces of Americanisation Richard Hooke 04072025 final post SDR1

The UK Defence Industry in the 21 Century
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The Five Forces of Americanisation

UK Companies in the top 100 Defence Companies
Worldwide: 2005-2025 (by volume of arms sales only)

Shareholders own such businesses and so this community, represented by boards of directors, has
ultimately decided what principles and objectives would inform and shape the UK’s industrial
response, both to the end of the Cold War and to increasing foreign competition domestically and
abroad.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, directors of public companies, both executives and non-executives, are
increasingly part-timers. Non-executive directors are expected to contribute a diverse range of
experience and perspectives as well as independence and objectivity to decision-making. A range of
roles in different businesses provides constructive input, as long as they do not present conflicts of
interest or an impractical workload for the individual. However, board directors with executive
responsibilities, notably chief executives and finance directors, are responsible for running the
company on a day-to-day basis.
However, even in today’s competitive environment, running a public company has become an
increasingly part-time occupation. The chief executives of Rolls-Royce (also a non-executive director
at Iveco Group NV and senior adviser and former partner at private equity firm, Global Infrastructure
Partners), Babcock International (non-executive director of Wood Group plc), Chemring (non-
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executive director, TT Electronics plc) and Serco (non-executive director, Hays plc) are all part-time .
For those seeking information on “career enhancing” non-executive board vacancies in government
services, public and private companies, this can be bought for an annual subscription (of between
£799 and £249 according to the subscriber’s training or CV-writing needs) to an appropriate online
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recruitment agency . Such is the commoditisation of modern corporate governance.
Reaction to the sale of London Stock exchange-listed Cobham plc over the last four years suggest that
this community has not always been up to the job. Not financially, not commercially and certainly not
in the UK’s best interests from a financial investment, jobs, wealth creation, skills or technological
perspective. All major components of national prosperity.

Even so, one should bear in mind that the UK MoD’s “international competition by default”
procurement policy immediately weakened UK suppliers’ creditworthiness. Whilst this will have been
particularly damaging to Cobham, given its habitual use of short term debt to fund acquisitions, it
undermined many of the advantages of the conventional domestic supplier: the consistency of sales,
the strength of its competitive position, the accessibility of development and technology. This placed
UK companies at a disadvantage to those foreign competitors who secured a baseline of consistent
revenue from their home governments. It also encouraged private equity firms to consider buying UK

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07/07/2025 Richard Hooke 2025