Recently Yahoo News reported the following:
Losses from China Overseas Takeover Binge Are Piling Up
Fast
Manuel Baigorri
Bloomberg August 25, 2020, 12:54 a.m. PDT
(Bloomberg) -- Chinese buyers have not only stopped snapping
up iconic overseas assets, the coronavirus pandemic is ravaging the targets of
deals that defined a headier era.
Whereas some prolific acquirers such as HNA Group Co. and Anbang Insurance Group Co. began falling into disarray before the recent crisis, the impact on investments in sectors hit hardest by the outbreak means healthier owners are now feeling the pain.
Conglomerate Fosun International Ltd. could soon see its 2015 investment in Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group wiped out, while PizzaExpress, owned by private equity firm Hony Capital, said this month it’s likely to hand control of the British chain to creditors. Baggage handler Swissport International AG is also negotiating with investors over a rescue that could see HNA exit the cash-strapped firm it bought in 2015, Bloomberg News has reported. HNA is also among Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd. shareholders set to lose everything after the airline collapsed in April.
“Some of the Chinese overseas investments that have recently imploded are legacy acquisitions from the debt-fueled deal spree in the years before 2018,” Lars Aagaard, head of mergers and acquisitions and financial sponsors for Asia Pacific at Barclays Plc based in Hong Kong, said in a phone interview.
Even Chinese companies’ pre-Covid attempts to extricate themselves from investments are being tripped up by the pandemic.
Dajia Insurance Group, the heir to troubled insurer Anbang, found itself suddenly without a buyer for a $5.8 billion portfolio of U.S. luxury hotels when the virus struck. South Korea’s Mirae Asset Global Investments Co. did not consummate a deal agreed last fall by the April 17 deadline, prompting Dajia to sue. Mirae told the courts that hotel shutdowns caused by the Covid-19 virus are among its reasons why it canceled the transaction.
To be sure, businesses in sectors such as transportation, tourism and hospitality are facing extreme challenges regardless of whether the owner is Chinese or someone else, Aagaard said.
At $15.1 billion, the volume of Chinese outbound M&A so far this year represents a 25% drop from a year earlier and a far cry from the peak in 2016, when China National Chemical Corp. agreed to buy Swiss agrichemical maker Syngenta AG for $43 billion, according to Bloomberg data.
The pandemic is not the only factor explaining the plunge in dealmaking activity. India, Australia and the European Union have increased scrutiny on foreign investment in moves widely viewed as targeting Chinese buyers. Tensions between Washington and Beijing have seen sanctions imposed on officials in China and Hong Kong over human rights issues, adding uncertainty for Chinese companies operating overseas.
China Mengniu Dairy Co. on Tuesday scrapped its plans to buy Kirin Holdings Co.’s Australian beverage unit after being told the deal would likely be blocked, amid increasingly strained relations between Canberra and Beijing.
“The great uncertainties in the relationship between China and the U.S. have inevitably made Chinese investors more cautious with their cross-border deals,” said Eric Liu, Shanghai-based managing partner of Zhao Sheng Law Firm. “While we do not see any indication of Chinese investors stopping ‘going abroad’, it is completely understandable that they need time to assess.”
They may be cautious, but they are not completely averse. Earlier this month, China Three Gorges Corp. agreed to buy 13 Spanish solar park assets owned by X-Elio Energy SL, a renewable energy company co-owned by Brookfield Renewable Partners LP and private equity firm KKR & Co. The deal could become one of the few Chinese acquisitions in Europe this year.
Barclays’ Aagaard sees continued Chinese interest in future outbound deals, though focused more on deals that complement buyers’ core businesses.
“The desire to do selective and strategic acquisitions overseas is still there, especially in sectors such as power, infrastructure and utilities, technology and consumer,” Aagaard said. “Chinese companies, both private and state-owned enterprises, are now taking a much more sophisticated approach both as buyers and also as owners of businesses.”
Translation
（彭博社）- 中國買家不僅停止了搶購標誌性的海外資產，而且冠狀病毒大流行正在破壞定義一個時代的交易目標。
儘管海航集團公司和安邦保險集團公司等大量收購者在最近的危機爆發前就已陷入了混亂，在疫情影響最嚴重的投資行業, 它卻意味著比較健康的持份者現在正感受到痛苦。
大型企業集團復星國際有限公司可能很快就會損失其對太陽馬戲團娛樂集團2015年的投資，而由私人股本公司Hony
Capital擁有的PizzaExpress本月表示有可能要將這家英國連鎖店的控制權交給債權人。據彭博新聞社報導，行李搬運商瑞士國際汽車集團（Swissport
International AG）也在就一項救助計劃與投資者進行談判，該救助計劃可能會使海航集團退出其於2015年購入但在面對現金短缺的公司。海航集團也是維珍澳大利亞航空控股有限公司的股東之一,
當該公司在四月份倒閉後失去一切。
總部位於香港的巴克萊（Barclays Plc）亞太地區的併購與收購負責人和金融贊助商Lars Aagaard，在電話採訪中說:“最近爆發的中國海外投資中, 有一些是在2018年之前透過債務推動的交易浪潮而進行的遺產收購” 。
甚至有中國公司嘗試在Covid發生之前試圖從投資中退出，但也被這種流行病絆倒。
大甲保險集團是陷入困境的保險公司安邦的繼承人，當病毒襲擊時，突然發現自己沒有買家會購買價值58億美元的美國豪華酒店投資組合。韓國的未來資產全球投資公司（Mirae Asset Global Investments Co.）在4月17日到期之前, 尚未履行去年秋天達成的協議，這促使大甲集團提起訴訟。 Mirae告訴法院，Covid-19病毒引起酒店關閉是其取消交易的原因之一。
Lars Aagaard說, 可以肯定的是，無論擁有者是中國人還是其他人，交通，旅遊和酒店等行業的企業都面臨著嚴峻的挑戰。
根據彭博數據, 今年迄今為止，中國對外併購交易額為151億美元，較去年同期下降25％，與2016年的峰值相去甚遠，當時中國國家化工集團同意以430億美元收購瑞士農用化學品製造商先正達（Syngenta AG）。
大流行不是唯一的因素去解釋交易活動暴跌。印度，澳大利亞和歐洲聯盟對外國投資的審查越來越嚴格，人們普遍認為是針對中國買家。華盛頓和北京之間的緊張關係已經令到中國和香港的官員因人權問題而受到製裁，增加了在海外開展業務的中國公司不確定性。
在堪培拉與北京之間的關係日趨緊張之際，蒙牛乳業周二宣布取消了收購麒麟控股公司澳大利亞飲料部門的計劃, 它之前曾被告知該交易可能會被阻止。
昭勝律師事務所上海常務合夥人亞歷劉（Eric Liu）表示：“中美關係的巨大不確定性不可避免地使中國投資者對其跨國交易更加謹慎。” “儘管我們沒有看到任何跡象表明中國投資者停止了'出國', 但他們需要時間去進行評估是完全可以理解的。”
他們可能很謹慎，但並不完全不喜歡。本月初，中國三峽公司同意收購X-Elio Energy SL擁有的13處西班牙太陽能公園資產，X-Elio Energy SL是Brookfield Renewable Partners LP 與私募股權公司KKR＆Co共同擁有的可再生能源公司。這是今年少數中國企業在歐洲的併購交易。
巴克萊（Barclays）的Aagaard認為，中國人對未來的海外交易仍會保持興趣，儘管更多地側重於與買家核心業務互補的交易。
Aagaard說：在海外進行選擇性和戰略性收購的慾望仍然存在，尤其是在電力，基礎設施和公用事業，技術和消費者等領域。” “作為私有企業還是國有企業，中國公司無論是作為買家還是作為企業所有者，都在採取更為成熟的方法。”
So, both
private and state-owned enterprises in China have been snapping up iconic
overseas assets in the past few years.
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