Marrying the dragon

In recent years, China has played a greater and greater role in the cross-border merger and acquisition market. Outbound M&A activities have been accelerating since 2008. By 2011, the value of outbound M&A transactions has exceeded that of inbound by 70%.

In particular, outbound deals are getting larger in size. The number of outbound transactions has been growing at 26% CAGR since 2004, and the total value has been growing even faster at 60%. This trend is expected to continue as Chinese companies seek opportunities arising from the debt crisis in Europe and a need for expansion outside a well covered domestic market. Changes also happen in the choice of target sectors. For many years in the past, Chinese companies were most enthusiastic in acquisitions around natural resources and advanced technologies overseas. These are still and will remain hot sectors …