In the first half of this year, the slowdown of the global economy pulled down both the number of mergers and acquisitions and the trade volume in the Chinese market. According to the statistical data from Zero2IPO Research Center, there were 422 cases of mergers and acquisitions completed in China in the first half of this year, down 21.3% from the previous year. 366 cases had their trade volumes disclosed, showing the total trade volume of these deals amounted to 28.648 billion U.S. dollars, down 22.03% year on year. Though the domestic market of mergers and acquisitions is cooled down, the overseas market increased to a new level.
　　 New Record in Overseas Acquisitions
　　The decrease in the number of mergers and acquisitions in China is attributed to the decrease in the mergers and acquisitions made by both domestic companies and foreigners. According to the data from Zero2IPO, Chinese companies initiated 336 mergers and acquisitions in China in the first half of this year, down 25.7% from a year ago. The total trade vol- ume amounted to 7.069 billion U.S. dollars, which had a drastic decrease of 61.1% year on year. 37 cases of mergers and acquisitions involving 1.083 billion U.S. dollars made by Chinese companies happened within the property industry, accounting for 15.3% of the total number – the highest proportion among all industries.
　　Mergers and acquisitions made by foreign companies were not satisfactory either. Only 26 cases were made in that period and half of them revealed their trade volume to the public, involving 2.159 billion U.S. dollars – both the number and volume of deals decreased from last year. Different from Chinese companies, foreigners preferred traditional industries as the manufacturing industry saw the occurrence of eight cases of mergers and acquisitions, totally involving 1.031 billion U.S. dollars, taking 61.6% of the total volume of deals made by foreigners.
　　When mergers and acquisitions happened less frequently in China, Chinese companies had higher enthusiasm in overseas acquisitions. In the first half of 2012 about 60 cases of overseas acquisitions were finished in the overseas markets. The trade volume totaled 19.42 billion U.S. dollars, up 23.8% from the previous year. The energy and mining industries were the most popular for Chinese companies, which completed 13 mergers and acquisitions and involved 13.416 billion U.S. dollars or 69.1% of total volume of overseas mergers and acquisitions.
　　For this, Duan Ningning, research director of Zero2IPO Research Center, said that the European debt crisis and the stagnant economic development of other developed countries caused the stress of capital flow for many well-established foreign companies. This impaired their abilities to make overseas acquisitions and gave Chinese companies more opportunities to acquire them.
　　 Manufacturing Is the Most Popular
　　According to the statistical data, the 442 mergers and acquisitions happened mainly in real estate, energy, mining, biotech, healthcare, machinery manufacturing, electronic and photovoltaic devices, and entertainment.
　　As said before, manufacturing witnessed the most mergers and acquisitions. About 50 cases happened. The representative case is the American company Caterpillar acquired the Chinese company Nianda Coal Machinery in April.
　　Manufacturing is followed by energy and mining, in which 48 cases of mergers and acquisitions happened. The third place was taken by biotech and healthcare, where 37 cases occurred.
　　From the trade volume of mergers and acquisitions, energy and mining took the champion with 48 cases involving 14.759 billion U.S. dollars and taking 51.5% of the total trade volume. The second place was taken by entertainment and media involving 2.767 billion U.S. dollars. Construction/engineering was ranked at the third place with 28 cases contributing 2.26 billion U.S. dollars.
　　In addition, according to the Zero2IPO, the VC/PE companies completed 75 cases of acquisitions in the first half of 2012, down 21.9% year on year. The trade volume of 64 cases open to the public reached 2.033 billion U.S. dollars, down 71.1% from a year ago. These 75 cases are mainly distributed in machinery manufacturing, biotech/healthcare, Internet, telecommunication and so on.