Value of foreign corporate takeovers in Germany more than doubles in 2017: study

BERLIN, Dec. 27 (Xinhua) -- German companies have seen a surge in demand from international investors in 2017, a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) showed on Wednesday.

The volume of corporate takeovers which involved foreign parties rose to 99.8 billion euros (118.6 billion U.S. dollars) until November compared to 38.5 billion euros during the same period last year. For the entire year of 2017, PwC expected record international transactions of 119.8 billion euros in total.

According to the study, the strong increase in acquisitions of German firms was partially due to a few very large transactions such as the merger between the rail divisions of Siemens and French rival Alstom and the purchase of carmaker Opel by French Peugeot.

Measured by the number of announced transactions, most foreign buyers in 2017 were from the United States (158), followed by Switzerland (80) and the United Kingdom (72).

However, investors from France accounted for 55 percent of the total value. Chinese investors (including Hong Kong) sealed a total of 47 deals in Germany during the reported period.

The same as in the previous year, the majority of takeovers occurred in the industrial production sector (24 percent). Retail and consumption goods producers (24 percent) were the second most popular firms among foreign investors, while the third place was occupied by technology firms (16 percent). Enditem