Domestic and inbound M&A deal volumes in China (including Hong Kong and Macau) in the second half of 2009 are returning to robust 2008 levels, indicating that the impact of the global economic downturn on China M&A seems to have been short lived, reports PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Citing statistics from Thomson Reuters, PwC says that more than 1,800 domestic transactions are likely to be recorded in the second half of 2009, for a total of about 3,200 deals for the full year. This compares to about 2,000 deals for the second half of 2008, and a total of 3,797 deals for the full year of 2008.

Underscoring the return of healthy deal volumes is the number of domestic transactions, with close to 90% of all deals being intra-China or from Hong Kong to the mainland, indicating that deal makers are pleased with the robustness of the Chinese economy through the global financial crisis and that they are also confident about the future.

“First half 2009 saw deal volumes fall by a quarter but the number of transactions in the second half of 2009 reveals that this has been quickly recovered,” says David Brown, PwC China Transactions Partner based in Hong Kong.

Foreign strategic deal activity, however, continued the decline it started in 2007, with less than only 400 announced deals for the full year of 2009, representing a 40% drop from 2008 levels. Foreign buyers have been sorting out problems in their home markets and this has taken focus away from expansionary acquisitions.

Meanwhile, financial buyer activity is comparable to 2008, but represents only 6% of overall intra-China and inbound deal volume, being less than 200 announced transactions.  However, with 53 announced transactions in the third quarter of 2009 the domestic (as opposed to foreign) financial buyer activity reached its highest quarterly level historically.  The annual deal activity levels for domestic financial buyers will also be at its ‘all time high’ with 171 deals for 2009 compared to 147 in the full year of 2008.

China Investment Corporation, which historically mainly invested in overseas companies, announced two investments in the Greater China market in 2009.  These investments relate to minority stakes in Noble Group Ltd. and GCL-Poly Energy Holdings Ltd. and have a combined announced deal value of US$1.6 billion.

According to PwC, CIC’s investment in GCL followed the latter’s announced acquisition of Jiangsu Zhongneng Polysilicon Technology Development Holding Co. Ltd in June 2009 with a value of over US$3 billion.  These solar power transactions are aligned with the Chinese government’s plans to encourage investment into industries which reduce carbon emissions.

As for foreign financial buyers, PwC says they were more focused on maintaining and improving operations at their portfolio companies and found new deals harder to come by as gaps in pricing expectations between sellers and buyers continued.  Only 25 foreign financial buyer transactions were announced in 2009, making this the year with the lowest number of announced foreign financial transactions since 2006. Some reasonably sizeable exit transactions were reported however, including: TPG/Newbridge’s sale of its Shenzhen Development Bank stake to Ping An; and 3i’s and PraxCapital’s sale of their stake in restaurant chain Little Sheep Group Ltd. to Yum! Brands Inc.

Sector Activity

“As usual, deal activity was fairly evenly spread across industry sectors, however the industrial manufacturing sectors are the most active by number of deals in the second half of 2009,” says Andrew Li, PwC China Transactions Partner based in Shanghai.