Yet, curiously, they have bought hardly any American businesses in the past two years, whereas American takeovers in the euro zone have been rising, according to Jimmy Elliott, head of North American mergers and acquisitions at J.P. Morgan.
They include, he wrote, a "sudden coolness" to American advisers and the "forcible takeover" of a checkpoint in the Green Zone.
Charlton, who are in negotiations with Belgian businessman Roland Duchatelet about a takeover, are three points above the relegation zone.
The redeployment of Western troops prompted many Germans to flee to the West to escape the Soviet takeover of the remainder of the Soviet zone.
In the wake of a brief, messy late-90s major-label tenure, the band has persisted, and thrived, in a weird middle zone: too big for the underground, too small for a mass-audience takeover.
Some moderates accept responsibility for the left's takeover, conceding that New Labour, while an election-winning machine, became seen as a values-free zone.
For Charlton, the defeat saw them drop to 21st, one place above the relegation zone, and left manager Chris Powell awaiting his first victory since Belgian businessman Roland Duchatelet's takeover of the club at the start of the month.
Sir John Bond, HSBC's group chairman, said the takeover of Credit Commercial provided his company with a "unique opportunity to build a platform in the euro zone, where we have been underrepresented".
Lawmakers approved the pension takeover on Friday, but the move was denounced in Germany, whose political and financial influence in the euro zone tends to dictate policy.
