Win or Lose, in Britain It’s Where the Game Is Played That Matters

Andy Murray offered a break from "Wimbledonization," but it was a short one.Credit Andrew Cowie/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

LONDON — With Andy Murray knocked out of Wimbledon and Britons bereft about yet another prominent sports defeat, there is at least one small silver lining: the British can once again embrace “Wimbledonization.”

The term, often used in the City financial district to describe the presence, or perhaps domination, of foreign banks in London, comes from the idea that it doesn’t matter who wins the game, only that it is played on Britain’s green grass — or traded on London’s trading floors.

The Bank of England is run by a Canadian. A Frenchman is head of the London Stock Exchange. Executives from Portugal and New Zealand run two of the country’s state-run banks. A Chinese company owns London’s well-known black cab company and another will invest with the French to build Britain’s first nuclear power plant in a generation. Harrods, the luxury emporium, is owned by the Qataris, who bought it from Mohamed al-Fayed, an Egyptian.

“If a foreigner can run it better than we can, that’s great,” said Mark Boleat, policy chairman for the City of London Corporation. “We’re different from other countries in this way,” he said. “We’re not bothered by who owns it or who runs it,” just that it takes place here.

Even football games in England — where football was invented — can sometimes be light on Britons.

“We can have a match between Chelsea and Arsenal, and the only English people are the referee and his two assistants,” Mr. Boleat said.

Not everyone is enamored of the approach, strategically employed to make London the global financial capital. “Open door economics with no thought about the purpose to which openness is put is a recipe for demoralization and disaffection — and people clutching at straws for a scintilla of self-respect,” said Will Hutton, author of “The State We’re In” and a principal at Hertford College at Oxford University.

The concept is not new. Eddie George, a former governor of the Bank of England who was known as “steady Eddie,” told a story about some Japanese bankers who teased him about the fact that Britain organized the “best competition in the world, but the visitors carried off the prizes.”

“I used to explain to them that it was activity — rather than nationality of ownership or even control — that mattered in terms of the City’s contribution to the wider economy, and in terms of its direct contribution to growth or employment, or of income or tax base in this country,” he said in a speech.

Wimbledonization gained use with every passing year that a Briton did not win Wimbledon. In the men’s tournament, that turned out to be long time. Until Andy Murray’s victory last year, Fred Perry was the last British man to secure the title, in 1936. (Perhaps as evidence of Britain’s lag in progressive feminism, the fact that Virginia Wade won the women’s title in 1977 seems a bit lost.)

When Mr. Murray won the tournament, giving the British a sweet taste of homegrown victory, some reconsidered the merits of Wimbledonization. “Turns out that we do, in fact, like having a player in the game and having that player win,” said the head of one merchant bank after Mr. Murray’s victory.

But with Mr. Murray out of Wimbledon again, Britain can once again cheer for foreigners operating in their land.

Mr. Hutton said the origins of openness as industrial policy accelerated with Margaret Thatcher’s deregulation of London’s financial markets in 1986, known as Big Bang. At its heart, he said, the changes attracted foreign banks in part by allowing them to do things they were restricted from doing in their own markets — known as regulatory arbitrage — and by encouraging “light touch” regulation.

It worked for the few, but not the many, he said. “It’s worked for the City, but it hasn’t worked for British business in the round,” he said, arguing that it artificially inflated the exchange rate, led to a sell-off of British assets and shifted too much emphasis toward financial priorities in national decision-making.

Mr. Boleat said London had become a magnet for foreign businesses and individuals, noting that it had some natural advantages: English is spoken, which helps people who grew up speaking it, and the schools are good. London, he added, is a hospitable place to live now, much more so than when he arrived from Jersey 40 years ago. (With London house prices up 26 percent in a year, though, it is also less affordable.)

It is not clear whether part of the country’s welcome mat policy is more resignation than celebration. Britain’s once storied car industry — think Aston Martin, Jaguar and Rolls-Royce — has been taken over by Italian, Indian and German companies, though some manufacturing has been left behind.

There are few better examples of the City’s open-arms policy than the Canadian Mark J. Carney. When he was named governor of the Bank of England — the oldest central bank in the world — just more than a year ago, the fact that he was not British was barely an issue. The fact that he was receiving £480,000 a year in pay with a £250,000 housing allowance, and that his wife was having trouble finding a house on such an allowance, did make waves.

“Can you imagine if a British citizen was nominated to run the Federal Reserve Board?” Mr. Boleat asked.

Wimbledonization — and the ravages of the financial crisis — has had its effects. In 2003, the Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and the Lloyds Banking Group ranked in the top 10 for British investment banking revenue. By 2013, only Barclays remained, according to Dealogic.

London has 251 international banks, more than any other city including New York. London is the largest center for cross-border banking and the No. 1 market for foreign exchange, with 41 percent market share, as well as the top market for interest rate derivatives that are traded over the counter, with a 49 percent market share, according to the City of London Corporation.

Naturally, not all foreign-led approaches are welcome. When Pfizer tried to buy AstraZeneca, a leading British pharmaceutical company, opposition appeared from virtually every corner of the country except for Downing Street, which was criticized for being too open to the idea. With many United States companies considering British targets for tax-inversion purposes — incorporating in a lower tax country — some have wondered whether Britain should have stronger takeover rules.

Mr. Hutton said he was all for openness, but that perhaps there should be some more critical thinking attached to it. “If we are just a massive Wimbledon, what do the 64 million people on this island belong to? What is their civilization and purpose?” he asked.