The FT reports:

Foreign companies are struggling to complete takeovers in China and are being forced to pay more than local bidders, leaving Chinese buyers to drive the growth in the country’s mergers and acquisitions activity, according to a report.

The latest data, collated by PwC, indicate that M&A transactions in China over the past year have gone from being almost equally split between domestic and foreign buyers to being two-thirds domestic.

In the first six months, the volume of Chinese deals rose 20 per cent from the same period a year earlier, although their combined value fell back slightly to $27.6bn, driven lower by a 35 per cent drop in transactions involving foreign buyers.

Yet during this period, domestic deals rose 43 per cent by volume and 35 per cent by value in the first six months.

PwC executives said they had recently advised on several takeover negotiations involving a foreign buyer that had ultimately collapsed because of a disagreement over pricing.

David Brown, partner at PwC, said: “We have seen more problems with large transactions when control is going to a foreign investor.

To read more:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2edbf860-3480-11dc-8c78-0000779fd2ac,dwp_uuid=9c33700c-4c86-11da-89df-0000779e2340,_i_rssPage=9c33700c-4c86-11da-89df-0000779e2340.html