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M&A

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After the demise of Thomas Cook, Fosun’s acquisition strategy is reassessed
Oct 4, 2019 (WiC 469)

Restraint and moderation were two characteristics that came instinctively to Thomas Cook. The Victorian-era businessman built his travel empire on the foundations of the 19th century Temperance movement, which campaigned against the consumption ...

Passing the torch

Nanjing robot firm buys German welder
Sep 20, 2019 (WiC 467)

When German robotics firm, Carl Cloos Schweisstechnik, celebrated its centenary this year, the tagline was “pioneers of welding: a story with a future”. Its employees now know that much of that future is likely to be shaped in Nanjing ...

Jack’s closing act

Alibaba acquires NetEase’s Kaola for $2 billion
Sep 13, 2019 (WiC 466)

In Finland, ‘Happy Hour’ isn’t just a marketing ploy for bars to sell more booze. Around nine o’clock every evening, S-market, a supermarket chain, offers deep discounts on hundreds of items that are hours from their midnight expiration ...

Netflix film on Fuyao’s US plant reveals the harsh truth of globalisation
Aug 30, 2019 (WiC 464)

Cao Dewang’s business education began on the streets, cycling a round-trip 80km to sell fruit in the city of Fuqing. He spent some time as a chef before landing a job in 1976 at a state-owned glass manufacturer in his hometown. In 1983 he was ...

Let there be light

KKR takes control of NVC’s China business
Aug 23, 2019 (WiC 463)

When private equity firm KKR announced one of its largest ever investments in China this month, it shone new light on an incandescent tale in more ways than one. The basic terms comprise an agreement to pay Rmb5.5 billion ($778.98 million) to ...

Top of the class

Why an offshoot of Country Garden has been buying British private schools
Jul 26, 2019 (WiC 461)

In Decline and Fall the novelist Evelyn Waugh paints a satirical portrait of a minor public school in the UK where the annual sports day is a total fiasco. However, it is a very upper-class fiasco. After Lady Circumference’s son is ...

A ferment of activity

Why did dairy giant Mengniu sell its fast-growing yogurt brand Junlebao?
Jul 12, 2019 (WiC 459)

Were it not for regulatory pressure and massive debt, acquisitive conglomerates like Anbang and HNA would very likely still be clinging to their trophy assets around the world – as opposed to letting them go in fire sales. Their prime assets ...

Losing its fizz

A decade after Coke deal fell through, Huiyuan Juice finds another buyer
May 31, 2019 (WiC 454)

What do China’s “second most famous butcher” and Coca-Cola have in common? Not much, in truth. But butcher boss Chen Sheng (see WiC220) is about to achieve something that the American beverage giant couldn’t: taking over China’s leading ...

Supermarket sweep

Jardine Matheson goes shopping in China via Yonghui investment
Apr 26, 2019 (WiC 449)

In 1842 the Scottish trading firm Jardine Matheson adopted the Chinese name Ewo. It means ‘happy harmony’ and Jardines would later use the name to make a pilsner called Ewo Beer until it was forced out of China in 1954. Today Jardine ...

Unigroup keeps low profile over French tech buy
Apr 26, 2019 (WiC 449)

“We feel like cabbages in a field. We’ve no idea what sauce we’re going to get cooked and eaten with.” Such was the fearful prognosis of a production worker talking to French technology and business magazine L’Usine Nouvelle earlier ...

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