BEIJING, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- The amount of M&A transactions involving the Chinese enterprises fell by 18 percent in the first half of 2018 to 348.3 billion U.S. dollars, but the number of transactions remained at a high of 5,653, an increase of 191 over the same period last year, announced PwC in its report.
Although the number of M&A transactions remains high, the overall transaction amount is relatively low. Overseas M&A transactions fell particularly sharply, but the transaction amount was still about one-third higher than that before 2016, said Liu Yan, an executive with PwC.
In terms of transaction amount, Europe replaced Asia as the preferred region for Chinese companies to make overseas acquisitions in the first half of this year. Among them, China Three Gorges Group's acquisition of Portuguese power company EDP for 10.8 billion U.S. dollars and Geely buying stakes in Daimler for 9 billion U.S. dollars accounted for 80 percent of the Chinese enterprises' investment in Europe.
In the first half of 2018, the amount of strategic M&A transactions in China fell by 27 percent, according to the report.
PwC expects that the Chinese enterprises' M&A transactions will further moderately decline, and overseas M&A transactions of the Chinese enterprises will continue to slow down in the second half of the year. (Edited by Bao Nuomin)
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