Investment vol umes are higher for M&A

Chinese investors mostly conduct greenfield investments
in Germany and not, as often suggested in the media, M&A
transactions. That being said, the amounts invested in M&A
transactions involving existing assets are often higher than
those invested in greenfield proj ects that may require a rel-
atively small initial investment, as can be seen with a look
at three different sets of data.

Germany Trade and Invest
(GTAI) , the German government’ s agency for promoting for-
eign trade and investment, listed 2, 325 FDI proj ects under-
way in Germany in 2015, made up of 1, 912 greenfield proj ects
and 413 M&Atransactions. Chinese companies were respon-
sible for 13. 6 percent of the greenfield proj ects (260) , putting
themin top place, with more proj ects than even the United
States and Switzerland . Regionally, investors from
other EU member states were responsible for 41 percent of
the greenfield investments in Germany.

Foreign M&A trans-actions in Germany were dominated by the United States
(98 transactions; 23.7%) and the UK (45 transactions;
10.9%). Only eight M&Atransactions (1.9%) were com-
pleted by Chinese investors in 2015,
according to the GTAI.