China has laid claim to a pillar of German industry after Sany Heavy Industry, the country’s largest construction equipment group, said it would acquire Putzmeister, a Mittelstand company that makes high-tech concrete pumps.
The deal is among the largest in which a Chinese company acquires one of the family-owned, niche-focused, German engineering groups – the backbone of the German economy. The term Mittelstand covers small and medium-sized family groups.
Sany Heavy Industry, whose chairman is China’s richest man, and Citic PE Advisors, a Chinese private equity company, will acquire all of Putzmeister, with Citic retaining a minority shareholding. The parties declined to disclose a transaction price but people close to the deal said its value was somewhere in the region of €500m.