UK engineering software firm swallowed in £3bn merger with France's Schneider Electric

Re: Tart

Cherry Bakewell is obscure slang for a certain activity that begins sexually but ends in violent humiliation, so this may be an example of very dry humour, suggesting that what at first seems mutually beneficial is really just a hostile takeover, and the pleasure will end abruptly with a bloody nose.

Or maybe I'm overthinking it, and it's really just about "swallowing a tart".

Re: Yay plummeting pound

So much for keeping control of high-value businesses.

Why do you think that we, need some form of British "control"? JLR is flourishing under Indian ownership, after British state ownership ran it down to a point of near failure, then BMW failed to do anything with the Land Rover element, and Ford failed to deliver success for both Jaguar and Land Rover bits. GEC was British owned, and serially trashed vast areas of British industrial and technical business. I can think of some British tech-business success stories, but the idea that we have to keep ownership and some form of national control is bollocks.

Even if Schneider shut it down and took the IP back to France the skilled staff will move on and find something else to do that uses their skills. Meanwhile Schneider (in that scenario) would find they'd bought a small amount of IP, some contracts and customer lists, and the ongoing value without the skilled staff was negligible.