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.
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