Jewels In Their Crown.(Business)(Indian and British trade relations)

Byline: William Underhill

Indian investors have pulled a post-colonial table turn, snapping up some of Britain's best brands.

A recent Indian TV commercial for a mouth-freshening chew provides surprising insight into the business climate on the Subcontinent. The scene is modern-day London, and a young Indian tycoon passes a billboard for the East India Company, the giant British trading firm that dominated India's fortunes for almost 200 years. His immediate reaction: buy the company (in hopes of enticing aspirational Indians to buy the product, as well).

If the East India Company was still around, it's likely an Indian firm would be looking into an acquisition. Flush with cash, corporate India is on an investment spree, and Britain, the old colonial master, last year became the favorite target. Indian investment in Britain has more than doubled in the past three years, surpassing the U.K.'s own investment into India. Indians are now the second-biggest investors in London--home to 19 percent of the national economy--topped only by acquisitive Americans. "I don't think that even 20 years ago anyone would have visualized this," says Subir Gokam, chief economist at the Indian ratings agency Crisil. "We'd still have been imagining ourselves as a Third World country subordinate to the U.S., Britain and everyone else."

On a mission to India last month Prime Minister Gordon Brown spoke of a new "partnership of equals," one that the British hope will include freer trade with India, which despite its stellar growth, can still look more protectionist than peers such as China. While the only headline-making British buy in India last year was Vodafone's $11 billion purchase of a controlling stake in the Indian cell-phone outfit Hutchison Essar, Indian businesses have been snapping up a clutch of iconic British brands, including Tetley, Whyte & Mackay whisky, and Corus, a last fragment of British Steel, acquired by Tata last year for $12 billion. For good measure, Tata now looks set to take carmakers Jaguar and Land Rover off the hands of Ford.

Meanwhile, India's superrich flock to buy expat homes in the poshest areas of London. According to estate agent Savills, which staged its first road show in India last year, in 2007 Indian buyers bought more than 10 percent of London properties sold for [pounds sterling]4 million or more, topping even the Russians.