"The Thatcherite experiment" I read today in Mazowers book about the Failure of Thatcherism. and found this on the Net from LSE.
Britain and Atlantic Liberalism

Certainly, the UK has a system which seems radically different from those found elsewhere on the Continent. Even before the Thatcherite 1980s, British companies followed strategies which were clearly more internationalist and American-oriented than those of their continental brethren. What they added during the 1980s was the ability to tap some of the financial-engineering schemes dreamed up by the City of London. So, while the Japanese attracted most of the publicity (and host ility) for investing in the US during the 1980s, British companies were on balance even more active.

On top of this relative internationalism, the British system has been kept relatively competitive and focussed on the short-term. Its dependence on equity financing is in marked contrast to the picture in much of the rest of Europe. In addition, the openness of British financial markets has meant that Britain has particularly receptive to mergers and acquisitions, and has long been used to dealing with hostile or contested takeover bids. Over the years, then, the British system has evolved to lay down guidelines for matters such as the protection of minority shareholders in bid situations. The nationality of bidders is of decreasing relevance.

What the Thatcherite revolution did to an already relatively open system was to provide a further pro-competitive kick start. Some of the Thatcher government's measures, such as radically reducing the power of the trade union movement, removed some of the countervailing forces to the corporate sector. Others, including the City of London's Big Bang of 1986, increased the chances of hostile takeover bids by creating financial institutions that stood to gain from managing and advising on such activities. The partial deregulation of telecommunications and airlines were, again, also part of liberalising the economic process. Similarly, the massive privatization programme which Mrs Thatcher pioneered was also designed with this in mind.