One third (33 per cent) say Russian businesses have a different culture and that takeovers by Russian companies may result in a decline in public trust and deterioration of corporate governance in the UK. Only 3 per cent believe that Russian financial injection into the British economy would help to revitalise less effective UK companies.
More than half of those polled find Russian businessmen arrogant (62 per cent) and lawless (59 per cent). They also believe their Russian counterparts to be unreliable (47 per cent against 12 per cent who say they are reliable), and hypocritical (36 per cent against 3 per cent who say that on the contrary Russians are honest). 55 per cent see Russian businessmen as risk-takers (9 per cent say they are prudent) and 48 per cent find Russians educated (16 per cent say they are amateurish).
Almost two thirds (64 per cent) say the UK is "very" (13 per cent) or "fairly" (51 per cent) attractive as a place to establish or expand a business.
The respondents expect Russians to be lured into the UK property market (51 per cent), investment in finance/banking (38 per cent), or to follow the example of Mr Abramovich in the sport and entertainment sectors (38 per cent).
The leaders surveyed expect the British IT/telecommunications industry (36 per cent) and energy (35 per cent) will also be attractive to them. They consider that of the larger British companies, Corus (40 per cent), Centrica (28 per cent) and Vodafone (22 per cent) are the most likely to be approached by Russian businesses. The poll results suggest that amongst Russian big businesses, of those likely to acquire British assets, private metal producers such as Severastal, NLMK and "Norilsk Nickel" would be relatively more welcome in the UK (16 per cent, 14 per cent and 12 per cent respectively) whereas State-controlled Gazprom, Rosneft and Sberbank would not be as welcome (27 per cent, 20 per cent, 17 per cent).
One third of British respondents find the relationship between the UK and Russia either "difficult and getting worse" (30 per cent) or even strained/unfriendly (5 per cent) whereas only 6 per cent believe that relations are friendly and 12 per cent that they are good/getting better.
Almost half of respondents see Russia as "fairly" (30 per cent) or even "very" (14 per cent) unattractive as a place to invest whereas 24 per cent say it is fairly attractive (3 per cent - "very attractive").
Amongst the main risks and challenges Britons face doing business in Russia those polled mention corruption (77 per cent), legal restrictions for foreigners (60 per cent) and lack of property rights protection (43 per cent). Only 14 per cent would choose Russia from the world's emerging markets to invest in/ expand their business to - less than half of those who would choose Poland (37 per cent) or China (30 per cent).
Simultaneously, Russian Axis conducted a survey in Russia where Russian business leaders were polled on the same topic.
Russian bosses agree with their British counterparts that the UK is 'very' (12 per cent) or 'fairly' (36 per cent) attractive as a place to invest though only 14 per cent of those polled would choose the UK out of the G7 countries when investing abroad. Among the challenges when expanding to the UK they most frequently mention aloofness of the UK establishment (29 per cent), saturation of the market and harsh competition (26 per cent) and high taxes (16 per cent).
They deem Russian expansion to the UK a good thing for both the UK (16 per cent - "very good thing" and 46 per cent - "rather good thing") and Russia (20 per cent and 49 per cent respectively). However they are more sceptical than their British counterparts regarding the nature of this expansion. Almost half (49 per cent) of those polled in Russia believe that so-called 'expansion' is merely a form of capital outflow from Russia when investors take profits expecting more risks and instability. According to the YouGov poll results, only 25 per cent of the UK business leaders polled would agree with this assertion.
Russian business leaders' attitude towards Britons is much more sympathetic. The vast majority of them find UK businessmen law-abiding (95 per cent), prudent (81 per cent), educated (83 per cent), reliable (82 per cent) and "on the cutting edge" (79 per cent).
They believe that investing in the UK, Russian companies would prefer the property market (32 per cent), finance/ banking (26 per cent) and hotels/catering (24 per cent). 14 per cent say they would prefer sport and entertainment, 11 per cent - IT/telecommunications industry and only 6 per cent say they would contemplate investing in the energy sector.
The poll in the UK was conducted by YouGov Plc for Russian Axis. Total sample size was 147 GB senior executives (owners, proprietors, CEOs, MDs, senior directors at board level) across a variety of company sizes and industry segments. Fieldwork was undertaken between 10th - 15th April 2007.
The poll in Russia was conducted by Russian Axis. Total sample size was 111 Russian senior executives (owners, proprietors, CEOs, senior directors etc). Fieldwork was undertaken between 9th - 18th April 2007.
