This is the BBC.

Hello and welcome to the bottom line.

We're going to talk about who owns British companies today

and what difference it makes as to who owns them

because a lot has changed on that score.

Back in the 60s, wealthy individuals owned most of the shares.

Then by the 80s, we were told that was ancient history.

No, it was big pension funds and insurance companies that dominated the share registers of British

companies. But we can now say that even recent history is out of date. It is now foreign shareholders

who own the bulk of British shares. And this, by the way, is not foreign companies

taking over British companies, though that has happened on a spectacular scale as well.

Now, this is ordinary quoted shares held by foreign investors. Well, the ownership of shares

matters to the people who have to manage the shareholders and work out how to keep them happy.

So let us deconstruct the globalisation of the shareholder base in our country.

And I have three guests who have to live with this or analyse it.

And first is John Dawson, founding partner of Statera.

It's a new firm set up specifically to advise company boards on shareholder engagement

and outgoing as investor relations head at Rolls-Royce Holdings. We're talking, John, about Rolls-Royce

the engine maker, not Rolls-Royce, the car maker. Absolutely. And who owns Rolls-Royce? So about 40% of the shares are held by US institutions, another 15% to 20% by institutions in the European market and some in the Middle East and Asia.

And then about 30% by UK long investors. So the people you were talking about, the pension funds, the unit trusts,

and the people who manage money for us as investors. And then only about 10% by private individuals now. So as a company, it actually does represent what we're talking about completely here,

which is your share register, the list of all your shareholders, has globalised. And probably,

...