By Selina Williams And Denise Roland 

LONDON--If you're looking to take over a big British company, take heed. The U.K. government elected Friday has been increasingly hostile to foreign takeovers.

From drug behemoth AstraZeneca PLC to oil giant BP PLC, British companies or business assets with strategic national importance were increasingly protected from outside acquirers under Prime Minister David Cameron's government in the past year.

Warnings against foreign ownership were an unusual feature of the election that ended with Mr. Cameron's Conservative Party winning an outright majority after ruling for five years in a coalition government.

In general, the U.K.'s Conservative-led government has been supportive of foreign investment, but it began scrutinizing takeovers of British companies after U.S.-based Kraft Foods Inc. acquired Cadbury PLC, in a GBP11.9 billion ($19.4 billion) deal in 2010. Following that, the U.K.'s takeover panel, the body that regulates deal making, required bidding companies to provide more details on their intentions toward the target after the takeover, such as repercussions on jobs.

Last year, U.K. politicians rallied in defense of AstraZeneca when U.S. rival Pfizer Inc. proposed a takeover. The politicians argued that a deal would be against the public interest because it posed a risk to jobs and investment in the life-sciences industry.

Government ministers had no power to block deals on these grounds, but political opposition made life difficult for Pfizer. It forced Chairman and Chief Executive Ian Read to make the unusual move of writing to Mr. Cameron, with a string of commitments to the U.K. science infrastructure. Mr. Read was also summoned to two separate parliamentary committees, where he faced questions on the strength of these commitments. Pfizer ultimately abandoned the deal after AstraZeneca rejected its final proposed offer.

In March, as the political campaign began to heat up, the U.K. Department of Energy and Climate Change moved to block Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman from owning stakes in 12 North Sea gas fields that his investment fund obtained in a $5.7 billion deal for the petroleum division of German energy company RWE AG.

The reason, U.K. officials said, was that Mr. Fridman could be a future target of U.S. and European sanctions related to Ukraine conflict, a prospect that could result in the suspension of his North Sea gas fields. The fields are responsible for about 5% of the U.K.'s North Sea gas production.

Mr. Fridman protested, saying he isn't under sanctions. He isn't known to be a confidante of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In April, U.K. energy officials gave Mr. Fridman up to six months to sell. A spokesman for his investment fund, LetterOne Group, said Friday the company is looking to sell the fields--"given the circumstances."

Perhaps the boldest move by the U.K. government against a foreign takeover came just weeks before Thursday's election. A spokesman for Mr. Cameron confirmed that the government had told BP that it would block any sale of the oil company to a foreign company, so it would remain a British company with global clout.

Still wounded by billions of dollars in penalties from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, BP has been the subject of takeover rumors since the price of oil fell in the past nine months, lowering its share price and the value of its assets.

Practically speaking, the U.K. government's ability to actually block any potential deal from going forward is limited, said Alexander Keepin, a partner at Berwin Leighton Paisner, a London law firm that advises resources companies, though it could intervene on grounds of national or financial security, or a threat to media plurality.

"Generally the government has very limited power to interfere with [mergers] and has traditionally been reluctant to do so," Mr. Keepin said. "However, in certain sectors the government has indicated that this may change."

One counterpoint to any government objections to a deal is that, in many respects, BP is a British company by legacy only. The majority of its assets are located in far-flung corners of the globe. The largest proportion of its crude reserves is in the U.S.

There are few companies big enough to acquire BP, which has a market value of $132 billion and remains among the world's four largest oil companies that aren't state owned.

It is unclear whether the government's dialogue with BP was prompted by a takeover approach, but it may do little to stem M&A talk within the industry, bankers said. It did send BP shares down temporarily, though.

"Government proclamations about BP being a 'British industrial champion' may take the shine off the shares short-term to ward off approaches while longer-term oil-and-gas-sector consolidation talk continues," said Will Heddon, a dealer at trading-services firm London Capital Group.

The Conservatives aren't the only party that appears to view cross-border mergers more skeptically. Former Labour Party leader Ed Miliband had called for more scrutiny of such deals, and some in the London finance community many had feared a Labour government would block takeovers it saw as politically unfavorable. Analysts at Berenberg said this threat should be "largely removed" with a Conservative-led government.

The government's recent moves are in contrast to the earlier enthusiasm from British governments of all stripes for deal-making, even in the most strategic parts of the country's energy sector.

In a multibillion-dollar deal in 2009, the Labour-led British government welcomed the takeover of Britain's atomic power industry by French state-controlled nuclear giant Électricité de France SA.

In 2013, the current Conservative-led coalition government didn't flinch when Chinese nuclear companies joined with EDF to build two new reactors in a $24 billion deal. Nor did it object the previous year when China's Cnooc picked up a stake, via its acquisition of Canada's Nexen Inc., in an important North Sea oil field that feeds into the Brent benchmark.

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