The digital giant Tencent bought the British video game developer Sumo, the delivery and ordering platform Gorillas and the smartphone bank N26.
The majority of the insurance start-up Wefox and the household appliance division of Philips also went to Chinese buyers.
These and numerous other transactions meant that investors from China took over significantly more companies in Germany and Europe last year than in 2020, which was overshadowed by the corona pandemic.
Mark Fehr
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Klaus Max Smolka
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The number of Chinese takeovers in Germany rose from 28 to 35. The number of transactions in Europe rose from 132 to 155, with the value of the takeovers even increasing eightfold to $12.4 billion.
The figures come from an annual study by the auditing and consulting firm EY.
According to EY partner Yi Sun, Chinese investors remain cautious overall.
In 2021, despite the recovery from the consequences of Corona, there were far fewer Chinese M&A deals in Germany and Europe than in the boom years of 2016 and 2017. For comparison: the most recent Chinese takeovers in Germany worth two billion dollars are a record high of 13.7 billion euros in 2017.
Great Britain more popular than Germany
According to EY partner Sun, the relative reluctance of the Chinese has to do with the fact that Western countries are increasingly restricting foreign investments in sectors that are critical for infrastructure and security.
Well-funded financial investors have also become increasingly tough competition for buyers from China who don't want to pay any price.
At the same time, Germany has given up its role as the favorite market for Chinese company buyers to Great Britain.
With 36 deals, most transactions took place there in 2021.
Most of the investor money, however, flowed to the Netherlands with 4.5 billion dollars, which was mainly due to the takeover of the Philips household appliances division by the Hong Kong investment company Hillhouse Capital.
Around the world, Chinese overseas acquisitions declined in 2021 compared to the previous year.
This was recently calculated by the law firm Baker McKenzie and the consulting firm Rhodium Group, which specializes in China.
The completed mergers and acquisitions of Chinese companies abroad totaled $24 billion, up from $29 billion a year earlier.
In its latest analysis of the German capital market on Tuesday, the law firm Cleary Gottlieb named investment control as an essential part of takeover processes.
She referred to the case of silicon wafer manufacturer Siltronic;
whose takeover by the Taiwanese GlobalWafers failed due to the lack of approval from the German government.
The Federal Ministry of Economics has signaled that such interventions are the exception.
After the tightening of investment controls, the competent authorities examined significantly more cases.
Incidentally, BMW can, conversely, take over a majority stake in the Chinese joint venture BMW Brilliance Automotive after local investment restrictions have been relaxed.
In the flash study for the first quarter, Cleary Gottlieb evaluates the business with both takeovers and IPOs.
The war in Ukraine is taking away planning security and clouding the expectations of stock market newcomers.
Although Porsche is working on the major plan for an IPO, "the appetite for SPAC transactions in the USA and now also in Europe has waned".
It is currently unclear how the attack on Ukraine will affect the M&A business.
Financial investors including investors with risk capital (venture capital) are expecting a downturn in Germany.
"A damper on economic growth in Europe seems inevitable, from which the private equity and venture capital market can hardly decouple itself," says Mark Schmitz, deputy board spokesman of the industry association BVK.
From the point of view of fusion experts in Germany, the year had started well.
Cleary Gottlieb named a few milestones as examples: Siemens sold the postal and parcel logistics business to Körber for 1.15 billion euros and the traffic light technology business to Atlantia for around 950 million euros.