On a global acquisition spree, China adds another company

China's 2016 acquisition spree for foreign companies added another company on Thursday as Beijing Enterprise Holdings (BEH) said it would buy German waste-management company Energy from Waste (EEW) for $1.6 billion.

On Wednesday, China National Chemical Corp announced the purchase of Swiss-based seed and pesticide Syngenta AG for about $43 billion. In January, China National Chemical said it would purchase German machine maker KraussMaffei Group for $1 billion.

China's acquisition spree is not limited to European companies. Last month saw Haier Group, China's biggest appliance company, buy General Electric Co's US appliance business for about $5.4 billion. Also in January, Chinese property and investment firm Dalian Wanda Group said it would purchase a majority stake in Hollywood film studio Legendary Entertainment in a deal valued at about $3.5 billion.

Derek Scissors, a China scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said there may be other sectors that will appeal to Chinese buyers this year.

"The entertainment industry in its various forms will likely see investment beyond the Wanda-Legendary deal. Low commodity prices make energy and metals producers attractive if Chinese firms are willing to take the risks. China may also look to buy the power or rail units of large conglomerates such as Siemens," Scissors said.

All of these transactions involve capital outflow from China, which is supposed to be a problem right now. But Scissors said the Syngenta deal is an example of good capital outflow. "Syngenta has technology that China doesn't have and it certainly needs. And the price doesn't appear to be extremely high," he said.

"We see the deals getting bigger and bigger," Patrick Yip, mergers and acquisitions leader for Deloitte China, told The Wall Street Journal in reference to Chinese companies' acquisitions of foreign companies. "I am working on a number of them. Chinese companies want brand power and high technology."

David Brown, transaction services leader for PricewaterhouseCoopers China and Hong Kong, predicts around 50 percent growth for outbound Chinese mergers and acquisitions every year, for the next several years, according to the Journal.

EEW operates plants in Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands that burn waste materials to create steam to produce electricity.

EEW is seen as complementary to BEH's sewage and water-treatment operations. This green investment continues a trend in China. In 2015, China invested more than $800 million in 14 mergers and acquisitions of foreign environmental firms that were focused on the treatment and management of waste, wastewater and renewable energy, according to the Latin American Herald Tribune.

paulwelitzkin@chinadailyusa.com