Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, June 13, 1993                   TAG: 9306090305
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: F-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By DIRK BEVERIDGE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LONDON                                LENGTH: Medium

CORPORATE AMERICA CHANGES ITS ACCENT - IF NOT ITS NAME - IN BRITAIN

Sounds like an American from Iowa, you might think, until he or she asks for petrol instead of gasoline and drives away on the left side of the road.

The presence of U.S. business in Britain is vast, from Pepsi, Coke and Tabasco in the grocery shops to The Gap, Wendy's and Pizza Hut on the streets.

In fact, many British consumers are unaware that household names they have used for generations, such as Heinz and Westinghouse, are the trademarks of corporate America.

"If I said, `That's a foreign company,' They'd say, `It doesn't sound foreign,' " said Christopher Priston, director of a government agency that encourages investment from overseas.

"It's a bit more obvious if you're Japanese, or if you've got a foreign-sounding name."

As in America, investment by some foreigners, such as Japanese putting in auto plants or Taiwanese buying into the planemaking operations of British Aerospace, stirs concern among Britons. Many worry about losing some of their national identity, or perhaps losing control of their economy.

But U.S. companies, by far the biggest foreign investors in Britain, draw little if any vocal resentment. They run some 3,800 businesses that form a vital part of many sectors, selling hundreds of the same products found in U.S. stores.

The most recent government statistics showed American companies invested $9.07 billion in Britain during 1990, compared with $3.05 billion from Japan. The Netherlands and Germany ranked higher than Japan, but drew less attention.

Ford Motor Co. is the best example of a company that's been here so long it seems British.

Henry Ford began making the Model T in England around 1910 and Ford is now Britain's biggest automaker. The company employs about 30,000 people, with two big assembly plants and related factories that crank out about 500,000 vehicles a year.

During World War II, Ford tooled up to help the British military, making four-wheel-drive vehicles and gun carriers, as well as engines for Hurricane fighter planes and Lancaster bombers.

H.J. Heinz Co. Ltd. has been on the scene so long that consumer surveys show 90 percent to 95 percent of Britons do not know it is foreign.

Pittsburgh pickle seller Henry J. Heinz first brought his products to London in 1886, where upscale retailer Fortnum & Mason Ltd. bought out the entire lot. Two years later, Heinz established an export business and eventually set up big factories in the London and Manchester areas.

Heinz holds more than a 50 percent market share in British sales of baked beans, canned pasta, soups, baby food and catsup.

Although the face of corporate America is everywhere -- even a stone McDonald's next to the Tower of London -- it's easy to be tricked by the nationality of a company.

The Burger Kings all over the place may look American, even calling their potatoes "french fries" in a nation where the proper term is "chips." But they're part of Grand Metropolitan Plc, a British conglomerate that also owns such familiar-to-Americans names as Pillsbury, Green Giant, Haagen-Dazs and Alpo.