(…) “Em abril, a Bloomberg publicou um relatório sugestivamente
intitulado Como a China está a Comprar o Acesso à Europa, no qual compila
informação sobre o investimento chinês no Velho Continente, que totalizou 255
mil milhões de dólares na última década, cerca de 63% dos quais de empresas
controladas pelo Estado. Este número é conservador, porque ignora 355 fusões
cujos termos não são públicos. Embora a maior parte do investimento vá para as
maiores economias europeias, é na Grécia, Portugal e Chipre que a China mais
investiu em infra-estruturas básicas. A China possui quatro aeroportos, seis
portos, parques eólicos em nove países e 13 clubes de futebol na Europa. E a
REN em Portugal. Um estudo da Universidade de Sydney afirmou recentemente que
“o papel proeminente de empresas controladas pelo Estado no investimento chinês
em países estrangeiros levanta preocupações de que estes investimentos tenham
motivações estratégicas e não comerciais”. Em 2017, a Grécia, cujo maior porto,
o de Pireu, é propriedade chinesa, vetou uma condenação da União Europeia às violações
dos direitos humanos na China.
A Austrália, em nome do “interesse nacional” e os Estados
Unidos, pela “segurança nacional”, já legislaram para controlar a presença de
capital estrangeiro (leia-se: chinês) em setores críticos. A chanceler Merkel e
o presidente Macron começaram a movimentar-se para a UE responder coletivamente
a este apetite chinês pelas nossas infra-estruturas básicas. Enquanto isso, no
nosso triste jardim à beira-mar plantado, um líder sinistro, potencialmente
vitalício, de um regime autoritário, foi bajulado pelo poder político e
económico em peso, durante uma visita oficial em que até os moradores vizinhos
do hotel onde se hospedou viram as suas liberdades fundamentais suspensas. Um
presságio. Não tarda, Portugal estará ao lado da Grécia a bloquear iniciativas
diplomáticas de condenação da China.”
SUSANA PERALTA
A cor e o cheiro dos yuans de Xi Jinping: medo, muito medo
Não tarda, Portugal estará ao lado da Grécia a bloquear
iniciativas diplomáticas de condenação da China.
13 de Dezembro de 2018 / Público
How China Is Buying Its Way Into Europe
China’s Cosco Shipping Ports Ltd., which operates around 180
container berths at ports worldwide, is purchasing a stake in Euromax Terminal
Rotterdam BV.
By Andre Tartar, Mira Rojanasakul and Jeremy Scott Diamond
Published: April 23, 2018
For more than a decade, Chinese political and corporate
leaders have been scouring the globe with seemingly bottomless wallets in hand.
From Asia to Africa, the U.S. and Latin America, the results are hard to ignore
as China has asserted itself as an emerging world power. Less well known is
China’s diffuse but expanding footprint in Europe.
Bloomberg has crunched the numbers to compile the most
comprehensive audit to date of China’s presence in Europe. It shows that China
has bought or invested in assets amounting to at least $318 billion over the
past 10 years. The continent saw roughly 45 percent more China-related activity
than the U.S. during this period, in dollar terms, according to available data.
The volume and nature of some of these investments, from
critical infrastructure in eastern and southern Europe to high-tech companies
in the west, have raised a red flag at the European Union level. Leaders that
include German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron
are pressing for a common strategy to handle China’s relentless advance into
Europe, with some opposition from the EU’s periphery.
Where China Is Investing 👆
Many of the EU countries in favor of establishing a
screening process for foreign deals already have a high number of Chinese
investments themselves.
We analyzed data for 678 completed or pending deals in 30
countries since 2008 for which financial terms were released, and found that
Chinese state-backed and private companies have been involved in deals worth at
least $255 billion across the European continent. Approximately 360 companies
have been taken over, from Italian tire maker Pirelli & C. SpA to Irish
aircraft leasing company Avolon Holdings Ltd., while Chinese entities also
partially or wholly own at least four airports, six seaports, wind farms in at
least nine countries and 13 professional soccer teams.
Importantly, the available figures underestimate the true
size and scope of China’s ambitions in Europe. They notably exclude 355
mergers, investments and joint ventures—the primary types of deals examined
here—for which terms were not disclosed. Bloomberg estimates or reporting on a
dozen of the higher-profile deals among this group suggest an additional total
value of $13.3 billion. Also not included: greenfield developments or
stock-market operations totaling at least $40 billion, as compiled by researchers
at the American Enterprise Institute and the European Council on Foreign
Relations, plus a $9 billion stake in Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler AG
by Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. chairman Li Shufu reported by Bloomberg.
2016 was by far the biggest year for Chinese dealmaking in
Europe, when China National Chemical Corp., also known as ChemChina, announced
it would purchase Swiss pesticide maker Syngenta AG for $46.3 billion. (For the
purposes of this analysis and the following graphic, Bloomberg looked at the
announcement dates of deals. The Syngenta takeover, for instance, was finalized
only in January 2018.)
Excluding the sizable increase produced by the Syngenta
megadeal, there is a clear upward trend in recent years, with less than $20
billion in relevant investments annually prior to 2014 but more than that in
each year since. And yet the average size of deals for which financial
information is available looks to have fallen. In 2008 and 2009, the average
deal was worth almost $740 million, compared to a little more than $290 million
for 2016 and 2017 (when discounting ChemChina-Syngenta). So far this year, the
average deal is clocking in at $127 million.
Six deals worth $774 million are assigned to multiple
European countries and are therefore double-counted.
More than half of the known investment total is concentrated
in Europe’s five largest economies: The Chinese have participated in deals
worth $70 billion in the U.K. alone. But it is at the periphery where China has
made some of its biggest infrastructure plays, such as purchasing Greece’s
largest port, in Piraeus. There’s also an important core-periphery divide when
it comes to Europe’s openness to Chinese investment. At the same time that
Germany, France and Italy are pushing for an EU-wide investment screening
mechanism, governments in Greece, Portugal and Cyprus are skeptical of such a
move, saying it would hamper their countries’ ability to attract much-needed
capital.
The money will flow to where it is most welcome. Until a
European review mechanism is put in—the U.S. has one, Australia has one—Europe
is likely to win the lion’s share of Chinese investment. I expect a move in Europe
to regulate Chinese investment, but right now it is the number one destination.
—Derek Scissors, China researcher at the American Enterprise
Institute
Whether it’s buying up London commercial real estate, German
technology companies such as industrial robot maker Kuka AG, Scandinavian
carmakers like Volvo Personvagnar AB, or such energy producers as Switzerland’s
Addax Petroleum Corp., Chinese investments have clustered in a few key
industries.
Fosun International Ltd. took part in one of the largest
privatization deals in Portuguese history, buying 80 percent of Caixa Geral de
Depositos S.A.’s insurance arm in 2014.
Traditional Energy
In 2013, China National Petroleum Corp. paid over $4 billion
for a minority stake in the East African unit of Italian energy giant Eni SpA.
Construction
Chinese conglomerate HNA Group Co. paid $2.8 billion for
airport maintenance service provider Swissport International Ltd. in the early
days of a $40 billion-plus global buying spree.
Food/Beverage
Bright Food Group Co. paid $1.2 billion in 2012 for U.K.
cereals company Weetabix Ltd.
Fourteen deals, worth roughly $4.5 billion, are assigned to
multiple industry groups and are therefore double- or triple-counted.
TK
A consortium led by Shandong Hi-speed Co., a Chinese
infrastructure-management company, purchased a stake in France's
Toulouse-Blagnac airport in 2015.
Knowing who is doing all this buying is crucial to
understand how such activity fits into China’s official and unofficial foreign
policy aims. In all, more than 670 Chinese or qualifying Hong Kong-based
entities have invested in Europe since 2008. (Assets invested in or bought by
Hong Kong entities without significant ties to mainland China are excluded from
this analysis.) Of those, almost 100 are state-backed companies or investment
funds, which collectively had a hand in transactions worth at least $162
billion, or 63 percent of the total reported deal value, as compiled by
Bloomberg.
Yet the line between state and private enterprises is far
more blurred in China than in Europe: The Cosco group of companies, which is
challenging Europe’s domination in container shipping, consists of publicly
traded branches of state-owned China Ocean Shipping Group Co., and has bought
stakes in, or operate in, ports from the Bosphorus to the Baltic Sea. Eight of
the 10 largest acquirers we identified were state-owned or -backed, including
China Investment Corp. (a sovereign wealth fund), Aluminum Corp. of China Ltd.,
and Silk Road Fund Co. (a sovereign wealth fund connected to China’s Belt and
Road Initiative).
There is no backroom deal; everything is transparent. There
is no ‘winner takes all’, but every project delivers win-win results.
—Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, in March
An additional 30 or more entities are currently owned by one
of China’s provinces or municipalities.
The picture of China’s financial interests in Europe
wouldn’t be complete without taking a look at two additional types of
transactions: large stock purchases on the open market, such as Ping An
Insurance Group Co. of China Ltd.’s $10 billion stake in bank HSBC Holdings
Plc, and greenfield developments, or construction projects on previously
undeveloped or underutilized land.
Bloomberg’s analysis of data from Derek Scissors, a China
expert at the American Enterprise Institute, plus research conducted by the
European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) identified at least nine large
greenfield projects, mostly in the London area. The exceptions: the $24 billion
Hinkley Point C nuclear power station, of which China is funding one-third, and
a massive $3.4 billion mall outside Paris that Chinese real estate developer
Dalian Wanda Group Co. is pursuing alongside French supermarket chain Auchan
Holding SA.
TK
The U.K.'s $24 billion Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant
is one-third funded by state-owned China General Nuclear Power Corp.
Looking ahead, Chinese companies have expressed interest in
a slew of European deals that haven’t been officially announced yet, based on
Bloomberg data and reporting, as well as a recent ECFR report. These include
building nuclear reactors in Romania and Bulgaria, buying a Croatian container
terminal and building a Swedish port, taking over Czech vehicle maker Skoda
Transportation AS and an Ireland-based oil and gas producer, investing in
French ski-lift firm Compagnie des Alpes and a German electricity grid operator
and providing financing for a bridge in Croatia and a Budapest-Belgrade rail
link.
Correction: Location of the Poortgebouw building in second
map and description of Skoda Transportation AS in final paragraph
Methodology
This analysis is primarily based on data for mergers and
acquisitions, investment and joint-venture deals from the MA function on the
Bloomberg Professional service where the target’s country of risk is in Europe
(minus Georgia, Russia, Turkey), where the acquirer’s country of risk is in
China, and which was announced between Jan. 1, 2008 to March 31, 2018.
Twenty-five deals were manually added for certain Hong Kong-based acquirers
generally deemed to be Chinese, arms of Chinese companies or have significant
Chinese backing.
Two deals conducted by AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. were
also added manually because the acquirer is controlled by China’s Dalian Wanda
Group Co.
Deal valuations are based on reported terms. Where a deal
involves multiple acquirers, including outside China, we include the total deal
value as reported, not an individual acquirer’s share. Deals are registered
according to their announcement date.
Both pending and completed deals are included in the
analysis. This analysis captures Chinese inflows into Europe and therefore
excludes subsequent deals in which Chinese acquirers have sold or restructured
any relevant assets or company stakes.
This graphic regroups the 73 industry groups as shown on the
MA Bloomberg function into 25 broader categories, as laid out here.
Information on large equity stake purchases on the open
market or investments in land or greenfield developments are based on research
by Derek Scissors of the American Enterprise Institute and by the European
Council on Foreign Relations and attempt to capture the Chinese share of a
deal’s value.
Different European Union countries’ stances regarding an
EU-wide investment screening mechanism are based on Bloomberg reporting.
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