Corporate China's aggressive quest for a slice of the foreign market saw success and failure in a week indicative of Chinese companies' determination to step onto the global stage.
With its economy firing about 9 percent growth on average during the past quarter century, Chinese companies have become cashed-up and more ambitious and are increasingly making forays overseas.
Just in the past week, energy concern China National Offshore Oil Corp (
State-owned Nanjing Auto's purchase on Friday of collapsed British car firm MG Rover adds to a growing list of Chinese businesses with forceful acquisition strategies.
It may be that Nanjing is not part of the elite rich set of multinational titans such as Siemens, HSBC, or General Motors, but flush with money, Chinese companies are spending billions on expansion plans and are catching up as fast as they can.
Overall, Chinese companies have invested US$33 billion in 7,470 companies in more than 160 countries and territories by the end of 2003, according to the latest data available from the Ministry of Commerce.
"I expect more overseas companies to merge with or be acquired by Chinese companies in the future," said Zhang Qi of Haitong Securities (
While Nanjing gained a foothold in Britain, China's hopes of driving into the US faltered with CNOOC's US$18.5 billion cash bid for oil major Unocal rejected amid concern about its potential threat to US security.
Unocal said it instead accepted an increased US$63.01 per share stock and cash takeover offer from Chevron Corp, valuing the California-based oil company at US$17.1 billion.
Unocal's decision came after Haier Group dropped its US$1.28 billion bid for iconic US-based household appliance manufacturer Maytag, reportedly concerned about the complexities of integrating the two businesses.
Like the CNOOC offer, the Maytag bidding was being watched closely because of Haier's participation as the US Congress eyes Chinese businesses' attempts to purchase US firms.
Despite the political factors that have come into play, analysts said CNOOC, for one, was not out of the race yet for what would be the largest takeover by a Chinese company of a foreign concern.
Macquarie Securities analyst Scott Weaver noted a couple of weeks remain before Unocal shareholders meet on August 10 and it is hard to predict how they would vote.
"We still think that CNOOC has a good chance of winning," he said, adding the large stock component in Chevron's offer made it vulnerable to stock price changes.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day