International Law

New Record for China Outward Bound Investment

By Stan

Sinopec Group said Tuesday it has completed its $7.5 billion acquisition of Addax Petroleum , obtaining new reserves in Africa and the Middle East in China?s biggest foreign corporate takeover to date. (Yahoo)

Seven and a half billion — nothing to scoff at.

If nothing else, this will mean a new wave of hopeful accountants and lawyers coming over here and chasing the same deals.

The handful of outward investment deals increases geometrically in the mind of a senior-level partner of a professional services firm, so all you need really is one or two big deals, and these guys will be falling all over themselves to set up new offices here or acquire licenses from existing firms that have failed commercially.

Expect the list of resident foreign law firms to increase even more over the next 18 months (if that’s possible).

Then expect over the 18-month period after that for there to be a wave of office closings as those firms discover that there are only a few outward investment projects to go around and that they might have overestimated the amount of other China work they have/can get.

I almost pity these guys. The sad thing is, however, that some day in the future, I could very well be sitting in a room with the office managing partner of one of these firms who will be explaining the firm’s China business plan within the context of me joining the firm. I will have to nod sagely and say, “Yeah, that all sounds great. This place sounds like it has an excellent outward investment plan and has a real competitive advantage over other foreign firms.” Almost certainly bullshit.

Let the games begin.

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Full post as published by China Hearsay on August 19, 2009 (boomark / email).