Why is Dyson Head Office being re-located to Singapore?

[Simon]

My vacum cleaner came from Lidl, £35, it's a metal bucket with the motor and filter on the lid and the suction pipe on the side. Only uses 1KW and is the most powerful thing I have ever used.

[ocset]

No, Dyson is small beans compared to several other British engineering companies.

Thanks, Are you sure?…can you name them? (British ‘owned’ ones)

No, he's already had a shit ton of British taxpayer's money

Thanks, Do you know how much?…I thought he just re-invested his profits?

I wonder how this Dyson University is going?....Is it giving the Yield of British Electronics grads that Dyson needs?
The move of Dyson  head office to Singapore cant be for tax reasons….the saved tax  would be too small beer for Dyson. Its either “pressure” being put on the Dyson company,  or the desire to employ Chinese & Far Eastern Engineers, or the desire to sell the company.
The move also can’t be to give him a better chance to sell his electric cars into the Far East…because loads of other electric car companies would also have moved Head Office to Singapore if that were the case.

Impose massive import duties on his crappy products.

So from a legal point of view, now that the Dyson Head Office is in Singapore, the UK now has to "import" Dyson products?

[Simon]

So from a legal point of view, now that the Dyson Head Office is in Singapore, the UK now has to "import" Dyson products?

He moved manufacturing out years ago. With a UK base i don't know if that counts as importing but with his head office abroad it looks ever more likely. Like I said with everything made in china these days there must be an advantage despite tariffs, probably lower wages which make the imported product cheaper and therefore less tariffs that have little impact on his ridiculous retail prices in the Uk that can be fed right back into advertising.

[vk6zgo]

My vacum cleaner came from Lidl, £35, it's a metal bucket with the motor and filter on the lid and the suction pipe on the side. Only uses 1KW and is the most powerful thing I have ever used.

Mine is very similar.
It is an Ozito from Bunnings, & cost me $A49 .
Noisy as hell, powerful, & easy to clean ---it does use a disposable bag, but it is a big one.

We had a little Sanyo for years, that worked well, but was getting a bit "long in the tooth" so a few years ago, we bought a "Wertheim", paying nearly $A600.

It was a great big thing with a "Power head", was bagless, & came with a lot of ballyhoo about how great it was.
As you will anticipate, it was a great steaming heap of duck poo!

It wouldn't go for more than 15 minutes without overheating & ceasing to work, emptying the dust receptacle was a nightmare, the wires to operate the power head flopped around loose in the hose, so objects could get tangled in them, blocking it
The old Sanyo had similar wires, but they were imbedded in the side of the hose!


The handle which held the "wand" on the end of the hose wasn't gently curved, but had a fairly abrupt angle, giving still more chances of blockage.

Ultimately, the Wertheim went out for the verge junk pickup, & we went back to the Sanyo, but, unfortunately, it croaked a couple of years later, so we grabbed the Ozito.

The thing is, it is so cheap,that even if it does fail, it can easily be replaced by another "El Cheapo".
It doesn't show any sign of imminent failure.

[ocset]

Thanks,
Dyson moving the Head Office to Singapore means he can sell his electric car there (ie to the Far East)  with less of a tariff......but then why havent other big electric car makers also moved their head office's to singapore?
..Is it because their countries have trade deals which allow them to sell into the Far East, but the post-Brexit UK does not (yet) have such a trade deal.?

I guess Dyson has invested 2.5bn (but probably much much more)  into his electric car, so he desperately needs some kind of return on this investment, and if he has to move to singapore to get that return, then i suppose he has to do that.
I am guessing that if Dyson doesnt sell as many electric cars as he needs to, (to break even)  then he will be forced to sell Dyson off overseas in order to make back the money that he invested in electric cars in the first place.

I am guessing that Dyson approached the UK government for the investment, but the UK gov't possibly refused to give money over, which then forced Dyson to go to Singapore.
I have to say,  i am sure Dyson electric cars will be fantastic, but this is a very saturated market.......there's no garantee of any company making good sales in this one.....i reckon Dyson will  end up getting sold off overseas.

The trick will be  for some other (perhaps British) company perhaps to scoop up the Engineers that have been developing  the Dyson electric car in UK (after Dyson gets sold off) and get them to use their experience to develop a different electric car , under a different company banner.
Its hard not to imagine that some huge Chinese company is gearing up to buy out Dyson, then sell "Dyson" Electric cars back to UK.
They've got Dyson HQ'd in Singapore now...so they can analyse and interrogate Dyson better, ready for swallowing  it up...the Buy Out.
In light of how British industry has gone over the last 70 years, this is actually the most likely outcome......ie a continuation of this....
https://massey276.wixsite.com/ukdecline
PML Flightlink, (later called Protean) who were a British company that got started up into Electric cars, got swallowed up by the Chinese and the USA
If only the Brit Government could have bank-rolled Dyson to make Electric cars for the UK market, then things could have  moved forward from there.
Too late.

If you ask me, Dyson, ever  submerged in his Great Engineering thoughts and aspirations, has unwittingly hopped into a jungle without the support of his own country’s Government….He is now just  moving about to keep himself out of whichever of the Lions’ jaws he encounters…….and will end up having to sell off Dyson overseas, as a final personal survival bid.
Ta Ra Dyson, it was nice while it lasted.
I am not going to post my link to the "Revive" British Industry campaign, (on "wix") which predicts such things and shows how to avoid them.

[Zero999]

Unless he's getting the cars manufactured there, I doubt moving to Singapore will make any difference to the tariff paid. Singapore is probably a small marked, compared to the rest of the world.

I wouldn't be surprised if Dyson gets bought by a foreign power, but only when he's ready to retire.

[ocset]

Dyson is indeed getting the cars manufactured in Singapore.

I wouldn't be surprised if Dyson gets bought by a foreign power, but only when he's ready to retire.

Dyson's son is co-running Dyson at the moment..Jake Dyson....so Dyson snr retiring won't have much significance
I used to actually work at Dyson ..for Jake Dyson.

The UK Government failed to bank-roll Dysons electric car episode, and now Dyson will end up getting sold off overseas.

[Gyro]

Dyson's son is co-running Dyson at the moment..Jake Dyson....so Dyson snr retiring won't have much significance
I used to actually work at Dyson ..for Jake Dyson.

Shame you didn't get him into LED lighting, they could have had streetlights that sucked more than all the others.  Sorry, I really tried but couldn't help myself.

[Simon]

Dyson's son is co-running Dyson at the moment..Jake Dyson....so Dyson snr retiring won't have much significance
I used to actually work at Dyson ..for Jake Dyson.

Shame you didn't get him into LED lighting, they could have had streetlights that sucked more than all the others.  Sorry, I really tried but couldn't help myself.

Love it!

Dyson will go where ever he can make money. if he really was just an engineer he would not make adverts that tell out and out lies and even star in them himself.

Inventor, yes Dyson is an inventor not an engineer, he bangs existing blocks together and pretends he has invented a new technology

[SiliconWizard]

Inventor, yes Dyson is an inventor not an engineer, he bangs existing blocks together and pretends he has invented a new technology

Granted that's doesn't seem too glorious, but that's actually what most successful businessmen have done.

Still not sure why treez seems so affected by this, whereas as I noted there have already been many other and more prestigious UK businesses sold to foreign investors. Maybe he was recently considering switching from the lighting business to the vacuum cleaners one, or something.

[CJay]

No, Dyson is small beans compared to several other British engineering companies.

Thanks, Are you sure?…can you name them? (British ‘owned’ ones)

Rolls Royce holdings, 16Bn turnover,
BAE Systems, 18Bn turnover

Those two off the top of my head, dwarf Dyson. There are more, Dyson is small beans but has a high profile because he's great at publicising himself.

Hell, the company I work for turns over more than Dyson and employs more people here thatn he employs world wide.

[BravoV]

What Dyson is seeing, and maybe other big UK corporations too standing in queue to move out from UK is what so called "stability".

Business people need that, with the uncertainties and with recent the populist move across Western countries, they don't like that.

Look what happened to GM when Trump kicks in, it basically sink in shit hole that it has to close so many factories abroad, while downsizing local workers to be ready for the upcoming bad impact. Populist or ultra nationalist are head ache for big corporations, let alone the radical ones that love to seize big corporation's asset in so called "nationalism". With M.A.G.A. in US, who knows the next MP has the Boris Johnson's Ver.2.0 that yelled M.B.G.A. and randomly pick Dyson as an example as GM in US.

What you people rarely seen or even noted in Singapore is, as most the times its buried under the marvelous business paradise cover it has, but underneath there is a huge human right issue and yes, Singapore is not a "democratic" country.

The idea of "democracy" is the best for economic is not applicable to Singapore, this country has set a new brilliant example that without democracy, yet business can be booming and good in long term.

This article explains this nicely -> Brexiteer fantasy of Singapore-style economy will be hard to achieve


Quoting the most related section ...

"Singapore's authoritarian-lite system has allowed its ruling party to stay in power since independence and see through long-term policies rather than the short-termism seen in democratic countries.

"Why did the IBMs of the world come here very early on?" Vadaketh said.

"Part of the reason is we offered them [multinationals] lots of transparency and tax incentives, but we also gave them clarity," Vadaketh added. "Singapore said, 'hey, we are not going to have a change in government in five years... some nationalists are not going to come in and steal your assets.'"

[Simon]

Inventor, yes Dyson is an inventor not an engineer, he bangs existing blocks together and pretends he has invented a new technology

Granted that's doesn't seem too glorious, but that's actually what most successful businessmen have done.

Yes engineers don't get rich, they design the building blocks that so called inventors cobble together and then get all the credit. i thought it was well known that sales people get more than engineers? It is rare that a CEO is an engineer, all they understand is sales figures.

[cdev]

In many Asian countries, there is such a huge surplus of people who want 'desk jobs' befitting their social status as college graduates, that those jobs pay very little. Factory jobs pay better than many desk jobs.

So now the developing countries are looking to the ElDorado of Internet and e-services to 'solve this problem'. Thats the #1 subject being discussed at Davos this week.

They won't ever discuss structural problems like lack of decent wages for workers or rapidly growing inequality, nor will they question the faulty assumptions they all make.

So, this could lead to a lot of heartache for both the would be global firms and workers, and existing ones, and their current workers, including changes that might be more difficult to manage than those in the past. A race to the bottom.

Because there are finite numbers of jobs in the planets future. No matter how little people are willing to work for. People who make less and less can't buy things. Customers will dry up.

It's not simply a matter of working over the net, or eliminating red tape or making lower wages or traveling farther for work.

You can't squeeze water out of stones.

[apis]

Inventor, yes Dyson is an inventor not an engineer, he bangs existing blocks together and pretends he has invented a new technology

Granted that's doesn't seem too glorious, but that's actually what most successful businessmen have done.

Yes engineers don't get rich, they design the building blocks that so called inventors cobble together and then get all the credit. i thought it was well known that sales people get more than engineers? It is rare that a CEO is an engineer, all they understand is sales figures.

Most real innovation happens at universities by competing teams of people who are tax funded. The lone genius inventor who applies for a patent and becomes rich is a myth. Patents mainly serve to keep out competition from new players in an established niche. I knew people working at a large cell phone manufacturer that shall remain unnamed. They applied for whatever patents they could and every now and then compared the size of their patent pile with the competitors and made an agreement with them that they could use each others patents. For a new player with an mostly empty patent pile and no money to litigate it would be impossible to enter the market. There is a narrow window of opportunity in new markets, that's basically how apple, microsoft and google managed to succeed. But you have to be at the right spot at the right time to even have a chance, and for everyone who does make it there are thousands who doesn't. Jobs and Gates weren't exactly technical/engineering geniuses either, they were really good salesmen.

[ocset]

Rolls Royce holdings, 16Bn turnover,
BAE Systems, 18Bn turnover

Thanks, yes BAE i agree....however, there's a lot of "project engineering" there, with the design  work being mainly done outside of UK.
Rolls Royce....now mostly German.
Rolls Royce Marine electrical systems is the only part thats British now...but i heard the USA was after it.
I think Dyson (after BAE) is UK's biggest (British owned) company that does electronics engineering design.
Only other big  UK owned one i can think of is JCB.
Then i think its Stannah stairlifts, but Dyson dwarfs them

[cdev]

I actually met Jobs and Woz at around that time. When I was still a kid. In NYC of all places. And maybe 15 years later I met him briefly at a friend's house. According to my friend who knew him really well over many decades, although Steve Jobs was definitely a great salesman he was not a non-technical person. He was an exasperating person to work for and with, too.

[tggzzz]

Inventor, yes Dyson is an inventor not an engineer, he bangs existing blocks together and pretends he has invented a new technology

Granted that's doesn't seem too glorious, but that's actually what most successful businessmen have done.

Yes engineers don't get rich, they design the building blocks that so called inventors cobble together and then get all the credit. i thought it was well known that sales people get more than engineers? It is rare that a CEO is an engineer, all they understand is sales figures.

Most real innovation happens at universities by competing teams of people who are tax funded.

The tax funding is irrelevant. What's important is that the funding does not come with strings attached, and that can come from industry.

The lone genius inventor who applies for a patent and becomes rich is a myth. Patents mainly serve to keep out competition from new players in an established niche. I knew people working at a large cell phone manufacturer that shall remain unnamed. They applied for whatever patents they could and every now and then compared the size of their patent pile with the competitors and made an agreement with them that they could use each others patents.

That's standard operating procedure, and one of the main reasons for patenting.

Another reason is that in order to sell a company, the company has to have assets that can't just walk out of the door. Patents give investors a warm fuzzy feeling.

[raptor1956]

In many Asian countries, there is such a huge surplus of people who want 'desk jobs' befitting their social status as college graduates, that those jobs pay very little. Factory jobs pay better than many desk jobs.

So now the developing countries are looking to the ElDorado of Internet and e-services to 'solve this problem'. Thats the #1 subject being discussed at Davos this week.

They won't ever discuss structural problems like lack of decent wages for workers or rapidly growing inequality, nor will they question the faulty assumptions they all make.

So, this could lead to a lot of heartache for both the would be global firms and workers, and existing ones, and their current workers, including changes that might be more difficult to manage than those in the past. A race to the bottom.

Because there are finite numbers of jobs in the planets future. No matter how little people are willing to work for. People who make less and less can't buy things. Customers will dry up.

It's not simply a matter of working over the net, or eliminating red tape or making lower wages or traveling farther for work.

You can't squeeze water out of stones.

Speaking of Davos ...

There was a panel that included Michael Dell and a brain dead economics reporter for the Washington Post and the reporter asked Dell about a proposal to increase the top tax rate on anyone earning more than $10M/year to 70% and Dell first went into his 'foundation' apparently to sidestep the question and frame an answer common among his type but when pressed he, well, watch for yourself.




Brian

[Simon]

Oh so Mr dell knows better about how to run a country than a government? why does he not run for president if he is such a visionary..

This is why i have such a distaste for organizations like Rotary which is full of well to do earners (Bill Gates is a member) who I'd bet are being "tax efficient" while giving money to charities that would not need to exist if the government bothered to collect tax better and did it's job instead of accepting tax avoidance.

[apis]

The tax funding is irrelevant. What's important is that the funding does not come with strings attached, and that can come from industry.

True, but industry only pays for research that is very likely to be directly advantageous to them. Like in Sweden the car industry has been paying for engine research that helps improve performance, but no one in industry would pay for fusion research so that has to be tax payer financed if it's going to happen.

[tggzzz]

The tax funding is irrelevant. What's important is that the funding does not come with strings attached, and that can come from industry.

True, but industry only pays for research that is very likely to be directly advantageous to them. Like in Sweden the car industry has been paying for engine research that helps improve performance, but no one in industry would pay for fusion research so that has to be tax payer financed if it's going to happen.

That's not always the case - even if it often is the case.

Another consideration is that funds from industry also pay for some fixed costs, thus freeing up "tax money" to be used for fundamental research.

[raptor1956]

The tax funding is irrelevant. What's important is that the funding does not come with strings attached, and that can come from industry.

True, but industry only pays for research that is very likely to be directly advantageous to them. Like in Sweden the car industry has been paying for engine research that helps improve performance, but no one in industry would pay for fusion research so that has to be tax payer financed if it's going to happen.

It goes deeper than that ... President Eisenhower saw how useful the autobahn was and decided that the USA needed something similar.  He began the interstate highway program that cost many billions of dollars but the economic impact was 10X that at least.  Private industry or the investment of billionaires didn't build the national highways system, tax payers did and industry profited may times over.  If building a highway system were up to private industry and billionaires you can bet that all such roads would have toll booths every few miles so they could get there ROI.

For the leisure class the idea is that government is the problem and private industry is the answer -- the interstate highway system is but one example that destroys that argument.


Brian

[Simon]

Big business always acts as though it is the root of all good and should be allowed to profiteer as much as possible tax free as thanks whilst making copious use of the countries tax payer funded infrastructure.

Tax payer funded infrastructure is not built for profit but for the good of all as a necessity.

[cdev]

Simon,

That all changed on January 1, 1995.

Now rich countries like ours aren't allowed to do the things charities do, unless they did them before that date, and didn't change anything. This is very important to understand.

Otherwise, you're sailing blindly into a potentially huge disaster.

Oh so Mr dell knows better about how to run a country than a government? why does he not run for president if he is such a visionary..

This is why i have such a distaste for organizations like Rotary which is full of well to do earners (Bill Gates is a member) who I'd bet are being "tax efficient" while giving money to charities that would not need to exist if the government bothered to collect tax better and did it's job instead of accepting tax avoidance.

The governments have all set up new rules that say its not their jobs to help poor people out any more, its the market's job.