Chinese companies buying spree of overseas assets have made world headlines as Beijing encourages entrepreneurs to acquire foreign resources and technologies, market share and management expertise while domestic economic growth slowed.
Slumping global commodity prices since 2014 and the falling value of the euro have made their prey even cheaper.
Here are the 10 biggest overseas acquisitions by Chinese companies by value, with debt excluded, according to figures from international financial data provider Dealogic:
- $43 billion: State-owned China National Chemical Corporation (ChemChina) offers to buy Swiss pesticide and seed giant Syngenta on Wednesday
- $15.2 billion: Chinese oil behemoth CNOOC acquires Canada’s energy company Nexen in a deal completed in 2013
- $14.3 billion: State-owned aluminium firm Chinalco buys a minority shareholding in Anglo-Australian mining group Rio Tinto in 2008
- $8.8 billion: State-run investment firm China Cinda Asset Management announces in December it would take over Hong Kong’s Nanyang Commercial Bank
- $7.9 billion: ChemChina acquires Italian tyremaker Pirelli last year
- $7.3 billion: Refiner Sinopec buys Swiss oil exploration company Addax Petroleum in 2009
- $7.1 billion: Sinopec purchases 40 percent of Spanish energy giant Repsol’s Brazilian operations in 2010
- $7.0 billion: A Chinese consortium led by state-owned mining giant China Minmetals Corp buys Glencore Xstrata’s Las Bambas copper mine in Peru in 2014
- $5.6 billion: China sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp purchases 9.9 percent of US investment bank Morgan Stanley in 2007
- $5.5 billion: Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, the country’s biggest lender, acquires a 20 percent stake in South Africa’s Standard Bank in 2007
Note: Pork producer WH Group, formerly known as Shuanghui International Holdings, bought Smithfield Foods of the US for $4.7 billion in 2013. With debt included, the deal was worth $7.1 billion.
