Chinese overseas deals worth more than $75bn were cancelled last year, as a regulatory clampdown and restrictions on foreign exchange caused 30 acquisitions with European and US groups to fall through.
The figures, which reveal a sevenfold rise in the value of cancelled deals from about $10bn in 2015, highlight a waning appetite for global dealmaking by the world’s second-largest economy. But despite more deals being abandoned, the analysis by law firm Baker McKenzie and researcher Rhodium shows that Chinese direct investment into the US and Europe still more than doubled to a record $94.2bn in 2016.
Sellers of assets in Europe and the US are becoming increasingly wary of large deals with Chinese buyers, according to people involved with several cross-