China Global M&A Push, 2005 ~ Nowadays

[shadows888]

Neurala is also a fraud. Another millions gone in drain.

Also, this report is based on a report by NYT, which was a classic fear tactic, the so called "China threat."

But Chinese members here, being flattered by all those articles that deliberately hype things, to create the "China threat" scenario, just love it.

Ironic!

better to be feared than get step on.

 

[Shotgunner51]

Report: China’s HNA Eyes State Bank
The Chinese conglomerate has made a preliminary bid for HSH Nordbank, raising hopes that the ailing bank can be sold instead of wound down. It would be the latest in a series of investments by the HNA Group in Germany.

By Frank Drost Published on 02. April 2017, 21:31

China’s HNA Group hasn’t finished its shopping spree in Germany just yet.

After increasing its stake in troubled Deutsche Bank and acquiring loss-making Frankfurt-Hahn airport, the Chinese conglomerate has now made a bid for HSH Nordbank, the ailing state bank owned by Hamburg and the state of Schleswig-Holstein, according to Bloomberg news, citing people familiar with the matter.

The HNA Group – an aviation, logistics and services conglomerate – reportedly hopes to achieve savings in its shipping finance unit through the acquisition of HSH Nordbank, which remains one of the world’s largest shipping financiers with a volume of €17 billion last year.

The Chinese conglomerate is apparently working with asset manager C-Quadrat Investment, which manages HNA’s 4.76-percent stake in Deutsche Bank, on the acquisition.

Apollo Global Management has also made a preliminary bid, according to Bloomberg. Schleswig-Holstein’s finance minister and Hamburg’s finance senator said they were “very pleased” with the bids they have received for HSH Norbank so far.

Once viewed as a cash cow by Hamburg and Schleswig Holstein, HSH Nordbank has become a financial quagmire for the states. The bank was hit hard by the 2008 financial crisis due to its involvement in sub-prime mortgages in the United States and its exposure to the shipping industry.

When the shipping industry failed to recover, Hamburg and Schlwesig Holstein were forced in 2015 to raise their loan guarantee for HSH Nordbank by €3 billion. The European Commission approved the intervention on the condition that the states sell or liquidate the bank by February 2018.

Though HSH Nordbank’s “bad bank” has more than €20 billion in non-performing ship loans, its core bank has generated €639 million from commercial real estate last year.

Frank Drost is a Handelsblatt Editor in Berlin, covering financial supervision and banks. drost@handelsblatt.com.

https://global.handelsblatt.com/finance/report-chinas-hna-eyes-state-bank-740294

 

[onebyone]

ChemChina Wins U.S. Approval for $43 Billion Syngenta Takeover
by Aoife White
and David McLaughlin
5 เมษายน 2560 03:08 GMT+7

• FTC had asked for more information; deal awaits EU review
• Pesticide takeover would be China’s largest foreign purchase

China National Chemical Corp. won U.S. antitrust approval for its $43 billion takeover of Swiss pesticide maker Syngenta AG, bringing China’s largest foreign acquisition one step closer to the finish line.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday that it was requiring the companies to divest three types of pesticides in the U.S. as a condition for completing their deal. China’s antitrust authorities are also reviewing the proposed tie-up.

Both the U.S. and the European Union took a close look at the deal, with the European Commission opening an in-depth investigation last year. It cited concerns that the transaction might lead to higher prices and reduced choice for crop protection products sold to farmers.

The EU has an April 18 deadline to end its review. The companies have said they expect to close their deal by the end of June.

Big Deals

The takeover, announced a year ago, is one of a trio of mega-deals that would reshape the global agrochemicals industry. Dow Chemical Co.’s bid to merge with DuPont Co. cleared its biggest hurdle last week when it won EU approval with hefty concessions. Bayer AG still needs approval for its purchase of Monsanto Co. The combined transactions would whittle down six industry players to three behemoths: one American, one German and one Chinese.

If the deal is completed, ChemChina Chairman Ren Jianxin would become a head of a chemicals giant that sells products as varied as rubber tires, pesticides and genetically modified crop seeds.

Behind state-owned ChemChina’s pursuit of Syngenta are China’s ambitions for food security as a growing middle class consumes more grain-intensive meat and as farmland is converted to housing and golf courses. Syngenta would provide China with global access to farmers from Brazil to the U.K.

Syngenta Headquarters

“Syngenta will stay Syngenta” and will keep its headquarters in Basel, Switzerland, the company’s chief executive officer, Erik Fyrwald, said in a Bloomberg interview last month. He said that he expected to keep his job and that he had been told that ChemChina management wouldn’t be coming over to Syngenta.

“We’re not integrating with ChemChina,” Fyrwald said. “There’ll be ChemChina members coming onto our board. The chairman will be Chairman Ren from ChemChina. But we fully expect to operate as we do today.”

ChemChina’s offer for Syngenta was China’s biggest overseas deal announced last year, when Chinese companies disclosed an unprecedented $248 billion of acquisitions outside its borders, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. But late last year, Chinese authorities began scrutinizing cross-border transactions to help stem the yuan from weakening further.

The deal comes amid a wave of Chinese investment overseas, setting off concerns in the U.S. Chinese foreign direct investment in America reached a record $45.6 billion in 2016, according to data provided by research firm Rhodium Group.

‘Trade Abuse’

President Donald Trump has ordered a study to identify “trade abuse” that contributes to U.S. trade deficits with foreign countries ahead of a meeting with President Xi Jinping of China this week. He has previously accused China of carrying out unfair trade practices that hurt U.S. workers and has called for tariffs on Chinese goods.

The ChemChina-Syngenta deal was cleared by a U.S. national security panel last August, removing what had been seen as the biggest hurdle to the deal. The FTC has jurisdiction over the takeover because Syngenta sells its products in the U.S. The company got more than a quarter of its revenue in 2015 from seeds and crop protection in North America. The company also has several research and production facilities in the U.S.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-optimistic-warns-something-is-wrong-with-u-s

 

[TaiShang]

ChemChina Wins U.S. Approval for $43 Billion Syngenta Takeover
by Aoife White
and David McLaughlin
5 เมษายน 2560 03:08 GMT+7

• FTC had asked for more information; deal awaits EU review
• Pesticide takeover would be China’s largest foreign purchase

China National Chemical Corp. won U.S. antitrust approval for its $43 billion takeover of Swiss pesticide maker Syngenta AG, bringing China’s largest foreign acquisition one step closer to the finish line.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday that it was requiring the companies to divest three types of pesticides in the U.S. as a condition for completing their deal. China’s antitrust authorities are also reviewing the proposed tie-up.

Both the U.S. and the European Union took a close look at the deal, with the European Commission opening an in-depth investigation last year. It cited concerns that the transaction might lead to higher prices and reduced choice for crop protection products sold to farmers.

The EU has an April 18 deadline to end its review. The companies have said they expect to close their deal by the end of June.

Big Deals

The takeover, announced a year ago, is one of a trio of mega-deals that would reshape the global agrochemicals industry. Dow Chemical Co.’s bid to merge with DuPont Co. cleared its biggest hurdle last week when it won EU approval with hefty concessions. Bayer AG still needs approval for its purchase of Monsanto Co. The combined transactions would whittle down six industry players to three behemoths: one American, one German and one Chinese.

If the deal is completed, ChemChina Chairman Ren Jianxin would become a head of a chemicals giant that sells products as varied as rubber tires, pesticides and genetically modified crop seeds.

Behind state-owned ChemChina’s pursuit of Syngenta are China’s ambitions for food security as a growing middle class consumes more grain-intensive meat and as farmland is converted to housing and golf courses. Syngenta would provide China with global access to farmers from Brazil to the U.K.

Syngenta Headquarters

“Syngenta will stay Syngenta” and will keep its headquarters in Basel, Switzerland, the company’s chief executive officer, Erik Fyrwald, said in a Bloomberg interview last month. He said that he expected to keep his job and that he had been told that ChemChina management wouldn’t be coming over to Syngenta.

“We’re not integrating with ChemChina,” Fyrwald said. “There’ll be ChemChina members coming onto our board. The chairman will be Chairman Ren from ChemChina. But we fully expect to operate as we do today.”

ChemChina’s offer for Syngenta was China’s biggest overseas deal announced last year, when Chinese companies disclosed an unprecedented $248 billion of acquisitions outside its borders, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. But late last year, Chinese authorities began scrutinizing cross-border transactions to help stem the yuan from weakening further.

The deal comes amid a wave of Chinese investment overseas, setting off concerns in the U.S. Chinese foreign direct investment in America reached a record $45.6 billion in 2016, according to data provided by research firm Rhodium Group.

‘Trade Abuse’

President Donald Trump has ordered a study to identify “trade abuse” that contributes to U.S. trade deficits with foreign countries ahead of a meeting with President Xi Jinping of China this week. He has previously accused China of carrying out unfair trade practices that hurt U.S. workers and has called for tariffs on Chinese goods.

The ChemChina-Syngenta deal was cleared by a U.S. national security panel last August, removing what had been seen as the biggest hurdle to the deal. The FTC has jurisdiction over the takeover because Syngenta sells its products in the U.S. The company got more than a quarter of its revenue in 2015 from seeds and crop protection in North America. The company also has several research and production facilities in the U.S.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-optimistic-warns-something-is-wrong-with-u-s

It is strategic to have some stakes in the very strategic US agri-business, if not directly.

 

[onebyone]

ChemChina Wins EU Approval for $43 Billion Syngenta Deal
by Aoife White
5 เมษายน 2560 16:55 GMT+7

• Companies divest overlapping pesticide, plant growth products
• U.S. Federal Trade Commission approved deal on Tuesday

China National Chemical Corp. won European Union antitrust approval for its $43 billion takeover of Swiss pesticide maker Syngenta AG, a day after the U.S., bringing China’s largest foreign acquisition closer to the finish line.

The EU approval is conditional on ChemChina’s offer to divest "a significant part" of its Adama unit’s pesticide business, some generic pesticides the unit is developing, a plant growth regulator and some of Syngenta’s pesticides along with related assets and personnel, the European Commission said in an e-mailed statement.

"In all product markets with problematic overlaps ChemChina will divest either Adama’s or Syngenta’s product," the EU said in the statement. "As a result the commission has approved the transaction."

The takeover, announced a year ago, is one of a trio of mega-deals that would reshape the global agrochemicals industry. Dow Chemical Co.’s bid to merge with DuPont Co. cleared its biggest hurdle last week when it won EU approval with hefty concessions. Bayer AG still needs approval for its purchase of Monsanto Co. The combined transactions would whittle down six industry players to three behemoths: one American, one German and one Chinese.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday that it was requiring the companies to divest three types of pesticides in the U.S. as a condition for completing their deal. China’s antitrust authorities are also reviewing the proposed tie-up. The companies expect to close the deal by the end of June.


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...wins-eu-approval-for-43-billion-syngenta-deal

 

[onebyone]

HNA Venture Said to Bid for CapCo’s $375 Million London Venue
by Jack Sidders
5 เมษายน 2560 18:02 GMT+7

HNA Group Co., the Chinese conglomerate that last month purchased a stake in Deutsche Bank AG, is in talks to acquire the Olympia exhibition center in west London from Capital & Counties Properties Plc, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.

HNA has teamed up Bugsby Property LLC to offer more than 300 million pounds ($375 million) for CapCo’s venues unit, which owns the property, the people said. They asked not to be identified because the information is private. A separate bid from a group including Yoo Capital Ltd. and a German company is also being considered, the people said.

Spokesmen for CapCo, Bugsby and Yoo Capital declined to comment. HNA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

CapCo, which owns large parts of the Covent Garden district in central London, began exploring a sale of the venues unit in 2015. The company put the plan on hold before the U.K. voted to leave the European Union last year. CapCo transferred events to Olympia from the Earls Court exhibition center, which is being demolished to make way for a housing project.

The value of the events business fell 1 percent to 293 million pounds in 2016, according to the company’s annual report. The unit generated earnings of 19 million pounds, the report showed.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...d-to-bid-for-capco-s-375-million-london-venue

 

[AndrewJin]

 

[jhungary]

Not sure why EU need to approve this deal, Switzerland is not part of EU.........

It's like US approval for Canada to sell it's asset. This is just weird...

 

[zestokryl]

Not sure why EU need to approve this deal, Switzerland is not part of EU.........

But, Syngenta is big player on the EU market ...

 

[jhungary]

But, Syngenta is big player on the EU market ...

Well, then it's more like EU broker the deal and limited their damage.

I don't think Swiss need EU approval to sell it's own company, what can they do? Reject Swiss from EU?? lol

 

[zestokryl]

I don't think Swiss need EU approval to sell it's own company, what can they do? Reject Swiss from EU?? lol

They can fine the company and make its doing bussines much harder

Its not related to this, but look how the america fined ZTE and they had to pay in order to maintain relations with USA suppliers (qualcom)

 

[jhungary]

They can fine the company and make its doing bussines much harder

Its not related to this, but look how the america fined ZTE and they had to pay in order to maintain relations with USA suppliers (qualcom)

Well, US fined ZTE for doing business with Iran and NK, it's not because of Qualcomm.

EU cannot just go fine company without a reason, they can impose tariff, or taxes, but they cannot fine Syngenta for selling to China. They can say since you are no longer Swiss own, then you need to deal with EU tariff, but then Swiss wasn't EU to begin with, that mean nothing actually.

 

[zestokryl]

EU cannot just go fine company without a reason, they can impose tariff, or taxes, but they cannot fine Syngenta for selling to China.

I am giving an example, how they can harass the company under almost any pretext they find suitable

They can do a lot of actions, they are international financial mafia with unlimited power and zero responsibilities to anyone other but their masters on the top of money piramide

 

[jhungary]

I am giving an example, how they can harass the company under almost any pretext they find suitable

They can do a lot of actions, they are international financial mafia with unlimited power and zero responsibilities to anyone other but their masters on the top of money piramide

Oh well, then I guess there should be evidence that ANY if not ALL Chinese company in EU are under some kind of fine??

You are too paranoid

 

[Viet]

Not sure why EU need to approve this deal, Switzerland is not part of EU.........

It's like US approval for Canada to sell it's asset. This is just weird...

Syngenta needs approval from antitrust authorities to sell her business in the EU, America. I believe even in her home Switzerland, the Swiss antitrust authority must approve the deal. That is the standard procedure and not surprising.

The surprise is that China buys a company that is the leader in genetically engineered seeds. But China forbids GES products at home. How can such a deal make sense? many countries in the world forbid or place restrictions. The market is thin. I bet, the Chinese hope to sell such evil stuffs with big profits to few countries, that allow and have high demand on genetically engineered seeds. One of countries is surprisingly Vietnam.

Syngenta pesticides business is not worth the money.

In any case the Chinese have too much money. they are out to buy the world.