Overseas acquisitions, mergers rise in Q3

Overseas mergers and acquisitions (M&As) by Chinese companies still showed strong growth in the third quarter of 2014, but with considerable shrinkage recorded in disclosed transaction value, the Shanghai-based financial information provider Morning Whistle Group said Thursday.

Chinese enterprises took part in 116 overseas M&As during the July-September period, up 27.47 percent quarter-on-quarter. Meanwhile, 85 of them disclosed their trading volumes, which was a total amount of $39.2 billion, a fall of 23.93 percent from the second quarter, Morning Whistle said in a report released Thursday.

Chinese companies signed or settled 69 M&A deals in the third quarter, involving a disclosed amount of $21.01 billion in total. During the same period, there were 47 potential M&A deals, which Chinese companies acknowledged or were rumored to be involved in but hadn't inked any official agreement yet, contributing to a combined $18.17 billion in disclosed value.

Moreover, the number of deals valued at more than $1 billion dropped significantly in the third quarter to 11, with their value accounting for 9.48 percent of the total, down from 21.43 percent in the second quarter. Such a decline may be partly due to the sharp fall in China's outbound investment in fixed assets, with the value of such transactions accounting for 21.6 percent of the total, down from 54.12 percent in the previous quarter.

Also, according to Wang Yunfan, CEO of Morning Whistle, a growing number of private companies have taken part in overseas M&As. In comparison, overseas transactions by Chinese State-owned companies appeared relatively slack.

Recent figures from PricewaterhouseCoopers show that China's private companies completed 120 M&A transactions during the first nine months of this year, more than double the number completed by their State-owned peers.

"It may be because most State-owned enterprises are preoccupied with the mixed-ownership reforms that the central government has been strengthening," Wang Shiyu, chairman of the board of Beijing-based ProCapital, told a media briefing held by Morning Whistle Thursday.