Excluding six UK companies where spending fell sharply, among them MG Rover and BT, R&D investment rose 1.7 per cent.The biggest R&D spenders worldwide were DaimlerChrysler and the US drugs company Pfizer, each with budgets of £4bn. The highest spending UK company was once again GlaxoSmithKline on £2.8bn, putting it in eleventh place.Spending by pharmaceuticals rose by 4 per cent and, together with aerospace and defence, made up more than half of the total expenditure of the UK's largest 750 companies.The survey showed that large foreign R&D investors chose the UK as a location. Significantly, however, spending increased not just in sectors where the UK is traditionally strong, such as aerospace and pharmaceuticals, but also in industries where it has tended to lag in the past, including IT hardware and software.Mr Tubbs also said there was evidence of an increase in R&D spending among small and medium-sized companies, which the new government tax credits are specifically aimed at. Internationally, spending on R&D was equivalent to 3.8 per cent of turnover but in the UK the figure was only 2 per cent.Mike Tubbs, the author of the report, said this was partially explained by the fact that the UK has a high concentration of companies in industries such as oil, telecoms and food processing where turnover and capital expenditure was very high but pure R&D spending tended to be low.Of the 31 UK industrial sectors covered in the scoreboard, 19 reported a decline in spending and 10 showed an increase. By contrast, overseas rivals increased spending, with R&D investment by the world's top 1,000 companies up by 5 per cent to £220bn. This is the second year running that R&D spending by UK companies has slipped, even though new tax incentives introduced in 2000 and 2002 enable firms to offset more than 100 per cent of their investment against tax.The DTI's 2005 R&D Scoreboard also shows that UK companies still lag a long way behind the international average in terms of the relative amount spent on innovation.
Figures published today by the Department for Trade and Industry show that R&D spending by British industry fell 1 per cent last year to £17bn. Spending by UK companies on research and development is continuing to decline despite generous tax breaks from the Government aimed at stimulating more investment in innovation. Mr Shelton was ordered to pay almost $3.3bn in restitution, including an initial payment of $15m by October and monthly payments of $2,000 once he is out of prison to cover the amount Cendant spent on settling shareholder litigation, and its legal and audit fees. Four years ago, it paid out $2.8bn to settle shareholder lawsuits..
Shortly after the merger of CUC International and HFS gave birth to Cendant in 1997, the US financial watchdog, the Securities and Exchange Commission, found that CUC had been inflating its earnings for almost a decade.In August, Kirk Shelton, CUC's former president and chief operating officer, was sentenced to 10 years in jail after being found guilty of wire and securities fraud and lying to the SEC. He said he thought being a leading player in property and travel had "strategic and competitive advantages" that its stock market quote did not reflect.Cendant's corporate shake-up is part of the group's struggle to repair its Wall Street image in the wake of the accounting scandal that floored its share price in the late Nineties. It is now the world's second biggest online travel group after Expedia, which acquired lastminute earlier this year.Last month, Cendant's chief financial officer, Ronald Nelson, told analysts and investors that he thought Wall Street undervalued the company because it is a conglomerate. The other would contain its Century 21 and Sotheby's International estate agents.No one from Cendant was available to comment but one report suggested that an announcement about its strategic future could come as early as this week.The New York-based Cendant has sold a string of non-core business in recent months, including its $1.8bn (£1bn) marketing services division in July, to try to shed its sprawling conglomerate image, building itself a war chest for acquisitions in the process.It paid $404m for ebookers earlier this year and has also recently spent $1.2bn on the purchase of Orbitz, a US-owned online retailer of airline tickets, and another $1.1bn on Gullivers Travel holiday company. Its four businesses span property, hospitality services, travel and vehicle services.If it opts to focus on its travel and property arms, then one business would include its Ramada Hotels chain and Budget and Avis car rental chains on top of its online travel interests and the European camping business, Canvas Holidays.
