Overview
- Japan: Western private equity (PE) funds’ significantly increased deal activity has been at the forefront, with ESG agendas taking centre stage as an M&A driver thus far. With respect to deal-making, we are beginning to see some recovery in the Japanese appetite to invest in both Europe and the US - Japan significantly lags behind the West in its vaccine roll-out, but we are seeing Japanese M&A teams starting to make overseas business trips in an effort to drive activity.
- China: After a challenging year for Chinese investors - given the political challenges with the US, and various European foreign investment control regimes, we explore their ‘return’ to international growth and deal-making this year.
- Southeast Asia: The Covid-19 pandemic has, in our view, resulted in business disruptions for certain sectors such as aviation and hospitality, but led to increased business activity for other sectors such as logistics and technology, given their pandemic-proof status. Companies like CapitaLand have chosen to restructure their businesses under these challenging times[1], while companies like J&T Express[2] and MoMo[3] have leveraged the accelerated consumer adoption of their service offerings to secure growth funds from investors, including Western private equity funds that have shown increasing appetite for these sectors.
Asian cross-border M&A activity
A deep dive into Asian cross-border M&A activity for Q1 2021, exploring key areas of activity and the outlook for Q2 and beyond.
In focus
Our Asia Access experts are joined by panellists from IDG Capital, ChinaVest and Cathay Capital to decode the 'myths' and the explore areas of investment opportunity in the Chinese market.
References
[1] CapitaLand to separate real estate development and fund management units, CNBC, 22 March 2021
[2] Indonesia’s J&T Express bags over $2b funding from Chinese investors: Report, Deal Street Asia, 2 April 2021
[3] Vietnam mobile wallet MoMo raises about $100 million, aims for IPO, Reuters, 13 January 2021
