Acquisizioni in Cina ed in India: la reazione di breve periodo dei mercati sviluppati

Over the last years, the activity of mergers and acquisitions in China has drastically increased if compared to the past, when these operations were practically unknown. In the present era they are at the same time a useful method for foreign investors to enter in the Chinese market and an important tool for the development of the Chinese economy.
The Chinese economy progressed dramatically during the last several years and this is mainly due to it entrance into the "World Trade Organisation" in 2001. The mentioned entrance opened and liberalised some previously closed industry sectors, and reduced some restrictions that were imposed to foreign firms willing to invest in China. Hence, an increasing number of foreign investors are now allowed to access to the Chinese domestic market. Also, some economics reforms strengthened the Chinese growth and contributed to the development of M&A activities, which became an interesting alternative to foreign direct investments. Moreover, the role of the State changed: in fact, in order to reduce its equity holdings, it allowed a sort of restructuration of "state-owned" companies, which made some of them available for partnering with international companies to become, as integrated conglomerates, global leaders. This operation further increased the number of potential and attractive targets for foreign investors willing to enter in the Chinese market. In fact, a survey of 2002 conducted by "PricewaterhouseCoopers" showed that foreign enterprises were greatly attracted by the possibility to enter in the Chinese market through a way that was not a traditional Greenfield investment. The main reasons were the size and the potential growth of the Chinese market, and the cheaper labour force (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2002).
At the same time, there are still many issues regarding the cultural difference, the structural barriers and the uncertainty. On one hand, the Chinese government is trying to set up a cross-border M&A policy more open and transparent if compared to the past, through a further opening of capital market to foreign investors, improvement of corporate policy, relaxation of foreign ownership restrictions, an increase of transparency in regulations and procedures. On the other hand, "the government remains cautious about sensitive acquisitions in strategic industries, due to the fact that emerging monopolies by foreign firms are perceived as a potential threat to China's economic security and cultural identity, and that foreign business are harming Chinese enterprises' capacity for independent innovation" (Harding, 2006a, 2006b; OECD, 2006).
Further, other factors have a great impact on cross-border acquisitions in China. First, the organisational weakness of state-owned enterprises (SOEs): this increases the level of targets attractiveness because of the possibility to enhance their performance (Peng, 2006). Secondly, the existence of three different set of Chinese accounting statements. The first set tends, in general, to overstate the performance for the potential acquirer and the upper-management. The second one leans towards the under-appreciation of the performance due to tax issues. And the third one, which is in general the most real version, it is addressed to the target's management. At this purpose, bidders willing to acquire a Chinese company should try to react offering a low price, having as a benchmark the overestimated version.
Since China opened its market to foreign investments just recently, the literature available on this subject is quite scarce. As already mentioned, thanks to a policy called "Open Door" introduced by the Chinese government in 1979 and the Chinese entrance in the WTO in 2001, it became possible to start investing in this attractive country. As a consequence, three "foreign investments waves" may be distinguished. During 1980 FDIs were allowed in the form of joint ventures. In 1990, many foreign direct investments had been converted into "wholly foreign-owned enterprises" (WFOEs). Subsequently, many real cross-border mergers and acquisitions took place.