Western groups wary of Chinese buyers
When Wang Jianlin, head of China’s property conglomerate Wanda Group, confirmed a deal Wednesday to acquire the UK’s prized yacht maker Sunseeker, it was probably read by many as evidence of China Inc.’s hunger to snap up targets around the world.
But all is not well with outbound M&A by Chinese companies. The buyers may be keen but the targets are not so happy, according to a survey by MSL China, a subsidiary of Publicis, published on Wednesday. Continue reading »
Mexico’s Walmex says adios to restaurant chain
For years, investors and analysts have asked what Wal-Mart de México y Centroamérica, Mexico’s largest retailer, was doing with a chain of budget restaurants. They have even suggested to top executives that they should sell it.
Well, it looks like their wishes may soon come true.
Walmex, as the affiliate of Wal-Mart is better known, on Friday said it was putting its Vips restaurant chain up for sale. Continue reading »
Poland’s PKO gains after Nordea deal
Shares in state-controlled PKO BP, Poland’s largest bank, gained 2.8 per cent on Thursday following its 2.83bn zloty ($887m) purchase of the Polish assets of Swedish bank, Nordea. Continue reading »
Investors not liking Banorte’s plans for a $3bn share offering
The Mexican stock market might be down 9 per cent this year. But that is not deterring Grupo Financiero Banorte from charging ahead with plans for what would be the country’s largest share offering this year.
The banking group, the third-largest in the country, said on Wednesday it planned to raise as much as $3bn through a follow-on share offering. While the Monterrey-based company didn’t specify what the proceeds from the share sale will be used for, there’s little doubt that some – if not all – of it will be used towards paying down the bill from its recent acquisition spree. Continue reading »
JBS: beef, chicken and a lot of debt
Just as picanha, the juicy Brazilian cut of steak, whets the appetite of denizens of Latin America’s biggest country, so do mergers and acquisitions for the Batista brothers, Josely, Wesley and José Batista Junior, who control the world’s biggest “protein” company.
After all, you don’t grow from being a butcher shop in the back of nowhere – that is, Anápolis, Goiás state (Brazil’s equivalent of the US Midwest) – slaughtering a couple of head of cattle a day to the world’s biggest beef exporter by shying away from deals. Continue reading »
Nowy Styl of Poland makes second German acquisition
With profit margins contracting in difficult economic times it sometimes makes sense to expand. That’s exactly what Nowy Styl, a Polish office furniture maker, has done with its announcement on Friday that it has bought German rival Rohde & Grahl for an undisclosed amount. Continue reading »
Indonesia: get ready for an insurance boom
With very low penetration rates and too many small players, Fitch Ratings reckons Indonesia’s nascent insurance market could be set for a wave of domestic and cross-border mergers and acquisitions.
The attractions of Indonesia’s market were highlighted this week by Japan’s Dai-ichi Life, which agreed to acquire 40 per cent of Panin Life, an Indonesian insurer, for Rp3.3tn ($337m). Continue reading »
Is China’s US pork play just a PE ploy?
The $4.7bn offered by Chinese meat processor Shuanghui International for Smithfield Foods has been touted as the biggest-ever Chinese acquisition of a US company.
But what if the deal is something else entirely? To one observer, it looks like a leveraged buyout led by private equity groups and funnelled through a shell company with only tenuous connections to China. Is he right? Continue reading »
Chart of the week: Chinese M&A in the US – bringing home the bacon
Nothing stimulates chatter about the rise of China like a big US-targeted M&A deal, and last week we had one of the biggest to date. The deal struck by the Chinese meat processor Shuanghui to buy US pork producer Smithfield Foods for just shy of $5bn will – if completed – be the biggest ever Chinese takeover of a US company. But what’s the overall picture when it comes to China-US M&A? Chart of the week takes a look. Continue reading »
Chilean retailer bets on Brazilian DIY
Chilean retailers are at it again: buying in Brazil.
This time, it’s the turn of Falabella, the country’s No. 3 retailer. It is spending $189m to buy a 50.1 per cent stake in Construdecor, which operates 57 DICICO DIY (home improvement) stores in the state of São Paulo, with sales last year of $385m. Continue reading »
CEE stock exchanges: Czech Republic sows confusion
Normally, when a country’s president weighs in on a potential merger of national stock exchanges, the response is enthusiastic.
But the unexpected backing by the Czech Republic’s Milos Zeman for a merger of the Prague and Warsaw stock exchanges has instead sown confusion into central European capital markets. Continue reading »
Citigroup has sold its Brazilian consumer finance units to local bank Itaú-Unibanco for R$2.77bn, as the US lender looks to withdraw from part of the country’s fiercely competitive retail banking market. Continue reading »
Petrobras: saying Tchau to Argentina?
By David Gacs and Jude Webber
If rumours are true, it looks like Petrobras is about to get another top-up for its coffers.
Just two days after the Brazilian national oil company raised $11bn in the biggest emerging markets bond offering ever, market chatter is that Petrobras is poised to sell a stake in Petrobras Argentina, its Argentine subsidiary, for a princely sum of $900m. Continue reading »
EFG-Hermes and QInvest: what really happened?
When a big deal falls apart, finger-pointing is rarely far behind.
But in the case of the failed bid by Qatari government-backed QInvest to create a joint venture with Egyptian investment-bank EFG-Hermes, Egypt’s market regulator certainly has a thing or two to learn about tact. Continue reading »
Who wins in Thailand’s biggest ever takeover?
The biggest domestic M&A deal in Thai history – a $6.6bn takeover by convenience store giant CP All of Siam Makro, a cash-and-carry bulk retailer with just 62 outlets in Thailand – made headlines on Tuesday.
But as one analyst asked on Wednesday, who is kidding who? Continue reading »
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