Anglo American Next In Chinalco’s Sights?

The consolidation of the global natural resources industry in response to the bursting of the the commodities bubble of the early years of the decade and the subsequent global recession means one of two things: more joint ventures such as the one between BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto in iron ore or more combinations within [...]

Beijing Hints At Flexing Its New Antitrust Muscles On Behalf Of Jilted Chinalco

There was obviously some wounded pride following the collapse of Chinalco’s proposed $19.5 billion investment in Rio Tinto. But to add insult to injury, Rio is now proposing an iron-ore joint venture with BHP Billiton in Western Australia.
Such a combination would account for 80% of the exports from one of China’s main sources of supply, [...]

China’s Automakers Likely To Cross Taiwan Strait For Parts

Taiwan’s three largest auto parts makers, Tong Yang Industry, TYC Brother Industrial and Depo Auto Parts Industrial, are open to investment from the mainland, Bloomberg reports. China’s car makers would get core design and manufacturing technologies they lack as assemblers and Taiwan’s parts makers would get access to on of the world’s still growing car [...]

First Cross-Strait M&A Deals Struck

An unsourced report in Taiwan’s Commercial Times (here via Bloomberg) says that some of the first companies on the island to offer to sell stakes in themselves to Chinese companies may include state-owned ones. Chinese companies will be able to take part ownership of Taiwanese companies, and vice versa, from the end of this [...]

BHP Billiton Drops Rio Tinto Bid Cheering Steelmakers

A rare piece of good news for China’s beleaguered steelmakers: BHP Billiton is walking away from its bid for Rio Tinto. Aluminum Corp. of China, Chinalco and other Chinese steelmakers were among the most outspoken about fears that the combination of two of the largest natural resources companies would have too much control over iron [...]

World Of Beer

A sidelight on our global world: Belgian brewing giant InBev is taking over the storied U.S. brewer, Anheuser-Busch. The $52 billion roll-up of roll-ups would create the world’s largest brewer and one of the five largest consumer products companies. The pair said today that they have closed the deal now it has the regulatory clearances [...]

CNPC and Sinopec Bidding Jointly For Petro-Tech Peruana?

Word reaches this Bystander of an unusual possible takeover bid by a Chinese firm, or rather pair of firms.
CNPC, parent of PetroChina, and Sinopec are bidding between $1.5 billion and $2.5 billion for Petro-Tech Peruana, which holds eight licences for drilling in 5 million acres off the Peruvian coast, Reuters reports. Plenty of Chinese companies [...]

China May Want To Buy Into BHP Billiton

Reports from Australia ahead of that country’s prime minister’s visit to Beijing that China wants to elbow its way into the takeover by BHP Billiton, the world’s largest mining company, of its rival Rio Tinto.
In February, it acquired a 9.3% stake in Rio for $14 billion through state-owned Chinalco. Wanting to secure raw materials for [...]

Shougang Blocked From Australian Iron Ore Acquisition

Australia’s Takeovers Panel has given Chinese companies another sharp lesson in the ways of cross-border M&A. This time: no concert parties.
It has ruled that Shougang Concord can’t go ahead with buying a 19.7% stake in Australian iron ore company Mount Gibson because Apac Resources, in which Shougang Hong Kong holds an 18% stake, already owns [...]

Once Bitten Twice Shy

State-owned China National Offshore Oil Co (CNOOC) ran into a wall of xenophobia that stopped dead its bid for the U.S. oil company Unocal in 2005. With the world even more sensitive to China’s global scavenge for natural resources, state-owned Aluminum Corporation of China (Chinalco) is seeking to preempt similar objections to its investment in [...]