Pfizer's move for Astra shows Brits fear Americans as much as they envy them

The alternative to an AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN - news) takeover is not business as usual forever. The pharmaceuticals industry is in the middle of a wave of consolidation

One of Hollywood’s favourite tropes is to give villains English accents. Bruising henchmen can be all American but, as Shere Khan and Hannibal Lecter attest, it takes a cut-glass Brit to signal a truly cunning opponent.

We all know this shorthand is fantasy, and that British people can be affable, too. But away from the film sets, in the corporate world, another common trope seems to be harder to distinguish from reality.

When it comes to business, it is the Americans, not the Brits, who are considered the biggest villains. We know that they hoover up market share and guzzle down their competitors. We fear them as much as we envy them.

Rarely has national prejudice been more clear than over the past fortnight, as Pfizer (NYSE: PFE - news) , the pharmaceuticals giant, has been making its case to buy AstraZeneca. In front of parliament, the US company has been variously described as a praying mantis, a leopard and a shark, coldly gulping down its competitor. Its Scottish-born chief executive, Ian Read, has been pilloried for his American management style, and his baffling American jargon. The deal is styled as “another American takeover”, as if that is inherently terrible.

There are reasons for significant caution, of course. Britain has trodden this road before. When Kraft swallowed Cadbury in 2009, the US food giant earnestly promised to make the most of its hard-won prize, and to preserve UK jobs by keeping factories open. Just weeks after the deal was sealed, those pledges had all but melted.

Pfizer’s own history is not blemish-free either. Before Mr Read became the boss it fell short on promises of its own. But it is overly simplistic to assume that Mr Read will behave in the same way as his predecessor, and at the same time disregard the company’s long history of ploughing billions into research in Britain. It is also overly simplistic to assume Pfizer is cut from the same cloth as Kraft, just because they share the same star-spangled providence.

Obviously, kicking Pfizer is an easy way for politicians to shore up “I told you so” evidence in the event that its proposed AstraZeneca takeover sours. And there is every chance I will look back on this article in years to come and cringe at my own position. However, in our eagerness to paint Pfizer as a villain, they have also glossed over some of the genuinely positive outcomes for Britain.

Having the US company move its tax domicile to the UK sends a powerful political message to the rest of the world that Britain is open for business. The British are not luring them in with Irish-style tax breaks, and there is no Starbucks (Berlin: SRB.BE - news) -style sleight of hand involving subsidiaries in Luxembourg. Instead, Britain has attracted Pfizer with a sensible regime that rewards innovation and which does not raid its profits in other countries. It was designed to make Britain attractive to big business, and that is exactly what it has done.

Meanwhile, Washington’s sensitivity around the so-called “inversion” scheme piles pressure on Pfizer to do more than simply whack up a brass plate in the UK. If the merger goes ahead, Mr Read has promised that a fifth of its global budget for research and development will be spent in Britain for at least the next five years, giving an enormous boost to the “golden research triangle” of London, Oxford and Cambridge (SES: E1:J91U.SI - news) .

Pfizer’s critics worry that the merged group would spend less on R&D than AstraZeneca and Pfizer do currently and that much Mr Read has admitted. But AstraZeneca and Pfizer’s R&D budgets will shrink regardless of whether they bind themselves to each other or go it alone.

Without wanting to sound too much like a Pfizer apologist, a point should be made for pragmatism. The alternative to an AstraZeneca takeover is not business as usual forever. The pharmaceuticals industry is in the middle of a wave of consolidation. R&D budgets are being driven downwards across the board. Britain can either accept Pfizer’s 20pc guarantees, and make sure it sticks to them; or risk becoming sidelined as the company takes its promises elsewhere.

Even John LaMattina, Pfizer’s former chief scientist who has spent the past few weeks as one of the deal’s fiercest critics, is impressed by some of the potential benefits. “The UK is getting one of America’s corporate icons to become a British company. I don’t think [people] necessarily appreciate that,” he told The Telegraph.

Moreover, he believed Mr Read will be a man of his word. “The commitment is unprecedented from Pfizer’s standpoint, and a pretty big deal. It will impact other parts of the world but it will benefit the UK,” he said.

= You are speaking my language... I think =

As a Brit living in New York (Frankfurt: HX6.F - news) , I felt a pang of sympathy for Mr Read during his parliamentary testimony. Phrases like “I can’t talk to that”, and “we will conserve that optionality” may sound like rubbish in Westminster, but in America that is just how people speak. My favourite example was from a senior government figure who told me, in response to a benign question, that “she couldn’t speak to the counterfactual”. If only she had been heading Pfizer’s parliamentary grilling. Things might have gone very differently.

= Wake up in a city that never sleeps to be king of (Capitol) hill =

New York may be the city that never sleeps, but at least the general insomnia is in aid of people having fun. It’s a different matter in Washington DC, where people are sacrificing their shut-eye as some kind of status symbol. Evening events wrap up almost as soon as they have started, because the power brokers of America’s capital have to get home to bed. You see, if they aren’t tucked up by 9pm, how will they deal with their punishing morning schedule?

I was once taken aback to be invited to a press conference at 6.30am. Actually I should have taken it in my stride. Lobbyists and congressmen are routinely cramming in two breakfast meetings a morning in their bid to schmooze as many people as they can. All those extra helpings of granola take their toll, so they are getting up even earlier to hit the gym. By the time 6.30am rolls around, they have been up and at 'em for several hours.

“It’s horrendous,” says one transatlantic transplant. “They’re getting up a few hours after the time I used to go to bed in London. Getting up early has turned into an arms race.”

Things are not quite at Bill Gross levels yet. The co-founder of Pimco famously gets to his desk by 4.30am every day. He was also famous for popularising the theory that the downturn is “the new normal”. I sincerely hope he does not achieve the same feat with early starts.