CFIUS okays semiconductor company sale

Beijing-based Naura Microelectronics Equipment Co Ltd has concluded a deal to buy US semiconductor manufacturing equipment company Akrion Systems LLC, according to Reuters.

Akrion, based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, is a supplier of equipment to semiconductor manufacturers and technology companies. It provides machinery that prepares the chips for use.

"As far as we are aware, this is the first Chinese acquisition of a US company to be approved by CFIUS under the Trump administration," Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP partner Fang Xue, one of the lawyers representing Naura in the deal, told Reuters.

CFIUS, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, is an inter-agency committee that reviews national security implications of foreign investment.

Xue said the Akrion deal was approved by CFIUS during the standard 75-day review period, even as other deals have had to refile their applications to secure extensions, adding that Akrion faces financial difficulties because it lacked scale, and the deal with Naura will boost its ability to compete.

Worth just $15 million, the deal is small by deal-making standards, yet it comes as CFIUS has tightened its scrutiny on Chinese companies wanting to buy US assets, especially in the technology and financial sectors.

Earlier this month, CFIUS blocked the $1.2 billion purchase of Dallas-based US money transfer company MoneyGram International by Ant Financial, which is controlled by Alibaba founder Jack Ma, whom US President Donald Trump praised last year.

Last September, Trump blocked the $1.3 billion purchase of US chip maker Lattice Semiconductor Corp by California-based Canyon Bridge Capital Partners LLC, a private equity firm that has China connections.

Fear-mongering of Chinese foreign direct investment in the US has been on the rise lately. Last week, Reuters reported that US lawmakers were urging AT&T to cut commercial ties to Chinese phone maker Huawei Technologies and reject plans by telecom operator China Mobile to enter the US market because of national security concerns.

The news came just days after AT&T dropped its plan to sell Huawei's new smartphone in a last minute announcement.

The Reuters report described the CFIUS' approval of the Akrion deal as boding well for Xcerra Corp, a US semiconductor testing company whose deal to be acquired for $580 million by Unic Capital Management, a subsidiary of China's Sino IC Capital and the Hubei Xinyan Equity Investment Partnership, is also under CFIUS review. Like Akrion, Xcerra does not manufacture any chips itself.

Late last year, the US Congress introduced the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIRRMA) that seeks to expand the power of CFIUS, targeting primarily Chinese investment.

Chinese foreign direct investment in the US dropped by 35 percent in 2017 to $29 billion after a record year in 2016, New York-based Rhodium Group said on Wednesday.

In terms of new activity, the drop was even sharper - the value of newly announced Chinese acquisitions in the US dropped by 90 percent compared to the previous year.

Rhodium attributed much of the decline to Beijing's regulatory crackdown on outbound capital flows, but stressed that growing regulatory hurdles in the US - mostly more complications getting clearance from the CFIUS - as the "second punch to Chinese investors".

It expressed concern over the implications of the new US National Security Strategy on Chinese FDI coming to the US.

chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com