Is it household names or smaller companies that account for most overseas investment out of the UK?

Richard Kilner, mD, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania European investment office

If you are looking at the dollar values or the sterling values then the answer is ‘yes’.

Major merger and acquisition and investments from the FTSE 250 companies account for the bulk, but in terms of the numbers of projects, we are seeing an increasing number of SMEs and particularly technology-based enterprises actually replicating themselves in the US successfully.

It’s not just telecoms we’re looking at but IT and digital as well.

As far as the state of Pennsylvania is concerned, we are the number one pharmaceutical state and that is driving life sciences biotech investment. It is across a range of technologies and it is an area where the UK has competitive edge worldwide.

From the US perspective the principal driving force is market access. What is driving that as a secondary facet of investment is the competitiveness of private enterprise within the market and the issue of currency.

How important is having a recognised brand when it comes to investing abroad?

Stephen Cheilotis, chairman, Superbrands Councils

If you can establish a strong brand it gives you competitive advantage, which may give you the opportunity to expand internationally.

When you are doing so, you have to be very careful and the same way that you do due diligence on a company you also have to do brand due diligence on a market. So, for example, Tesco in some countries uses the Tesco brand because it understands that the British connections will work there but in other markets - you’ve mentioned the US, obviously, where it is about to launch - it is not using the Tesco name.

It is important to understand what the market wants, what the market will accept and particularly if you are not going to just necessarily grow organically but acquire brands. For example when Vodafone went on its spending spree and bought up local mobile operators across the world, it had to do careful brand due diligence in understanding whether it should replace the local brand name with the Vodafone name.

It is important to get that branding right, but a strong brand can help you explore abroad but you can’t assume you can just roll your brand out everywhere and it will work.

Do most investments take the form of launch, acquisition or outsourcing?

Rob Bratby, corporate partner, Mayer, Brown Rowe & Maw

There is a real mix when you look at market entry strategies. They are pursued by different companies in different segments and also depending on where they are investing.

A classic way of breaking it down, is to say you build, you go in and set yourself up, you buy so you go in and acquire an exisiting business or you partner with somebody.

You need brand diligence, normal diligence that you have in a domestic acquisition, and there is also diligence around political risks and the operating environment.

Areas like India and China are hot at the moment in terms of destinations for investments. There may be restrictions on going in yourself and setting up, there may be licencing problems, there may be foreign currency requirements, or restrictions.

In those countries we are seeing quite a lot of partnering activity and people trying to find alternative methods of market entry, where the market isn’t entirely liberalised.

The single market in Europe, increasingly liberalised trade and the WTO have opened up a lot of markets. People are able to choose the most economically efficient way to enter the market - they can go in themselves, or they can buy. If you go back, 15 to 20 years there were a lot more restrictions. It’s only really now in WTO countries where companies really have the choice about how they do that and whether they can enter by going in and setting themselves up.

Chaired by Damian Wild