Posted on 07/02/2011 2:25:36 PM PDT by AfricanChristian
A RIDE in a London taxi from Canary Wharf, a financial district, to the Bank of England sounds like an inimitably British experience. It is also a Chinese one.
London’s black cabs are made by Manganese Bronze, which is part-owned by Geely, a Shanghai-based carmaker that also owns Volvo, a Swedish company. China Investment Corporation (CIC), a sovereign-wealth fund, has the third-largest stake in Songbird Estates, which controls Canary Wharf Group, the property firm behind the towers that dominate the city’s eastern skyline. CIC may soon become an investor in the Citigroup building, another landmark skyscraper, which is for sale.
The Bank of England is not yet Chinese-owned but it is increasingly encircled by Chinese banks, which have bought or leased about 300,000 square feet (28,000 square metres) of office space since the financial crisis. Bank of China, which has been in London since 1929, has recently moved into plush new headquarters that overlook the central bank. Down the road, in King William Street, the builders are at work inside the future home of ICBC, another state-owned giant.
(Excerpt) Read more at economist.com ...
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