The strong business ties between the United Kingdom and Colorado should survive the economic shock from the London transit system bombings, observers said Thursday.
“What happened won’t affect that relationship in any way unless it has a dramatic impact on the British economy and the British pound,” said Jim Reis, president of the World Trade Center in Denver.
“I don’t think we will see impacts on trade or investment from this,” said Laurel Alpert, division director for international trade with the Colorado Office of Economic Development & International Trade.
The United Kingdom is the state’s largest foreign investor and an important trading partner, so things that happen there matter to Colorado, Alpert said.
Last year, the United Kingdom ranked as the eighth-largest export market for the state, purchasing $253.5 million worth of Colorado goods, Reis said.
So far this year the U.K. ranks as the state’s fifth-largest export market, after a 9.4 percent surge in export purchases, he said.
Besides trade, Colorado and the U.K. share billions of dollars worth of investments in each other.
British-affiliated companies in Colorado employed 16,700 people and owned about $4.2 billion worth of plant, property and equipment in the state, Alpert said, citing a 2002 tally from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the most recent available.
Among the larger British holdings in Colorado are Tomkins’ ownership of rubber-parts maker The Gates Corp., Cobham’s ownership of Stanley Aviation, and Aggregate Industries’ large regional asphalt and concrete operations.
After former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher made the business climate friendlier in the 1980s, Colorado companies reciprocated with their own investments.
The former Adolph Coors Co. purchased Carling, the U.K.’s No. 2 beer brand, from Interbrew SA late in 2001.
Through his Los Angeles subsidiary An schutz Entertainment Group, Denver financier Philip Anschutz is overseeing the $1 billion redevelopment of the former Millennium Dome, recently renamed O2, and 23 surrounding acres. The arena is expected to host gymnastics and basketball during the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.
Several Colorado companies have set up sales and operational offices in the U.K., which is often seen as a portal into the rest of Europe.
An immediate concern for Colorado companies with London operations was to track down employees and make sure they were safe.
“We have approximately 240 employees, all of whom have been accounted for,” said Anderson Chan, a spokesman with Louisville’s Storage Tek.
“We plan to monitor the situation closely, and we’ll be taking the necessary precautions to safeguard the well-being of our employees, which is paramount,” Chan said.
The closure of London’s public transit system created logistical nightmares for workers trying to leave the city.
Engineering giant CH2M Hill obtained hotel rooms for those among its 50 or so employees who couldn’t get home, said spokesman Andre Armstrong.
Michael Klosowski, director of Denver’s trade office in London, described the scene as mayhem, said Timothy Martinez, an international trade specialist with the Denver Office of Economic Development.
Denver has maintained a trade office in London since 1998, using it to recruit British companies and investments.
When Commerce City-based Wembley USA chief executive Ty Howard called corporate headquarters in London, he said, his colleagues were arranging carpools.
“In London, we are quite used to this because we had the IRA (Irish Republican Army) activities here for greater than a decade,” one of Howard’s London colleagues told him.
Staff writer Aldo Svaldi can be reached at 303-820-1410 or asvaldi@denverpost.com.
