Like impatient drivers, money flows seek out new routes when existing ones are blocked. The $1bn purchase of Dick Clark Productions, the US producer of shows including the Golden Globe Awards, by China’s Dalian Wanda was officially canned this month. Similarly, the sale to a Chinese buyer of a lithium project in Mali was scrapped in January when capital proved hard to export. As overseas acquisitions become increasingly challenging amid Beijing’s clampdown on moving money offshore, expect trapped funds to find new targets — notably in private deals.
China’s private equity universe has already been growing. Preqin, an alternative asset data provider, says that venture capital deal volumes in Greater China began to rival those of the US as early as 2015. On Thursday, consultant Bain & Co noted that growth in investment has been especially strong for Chinese start-up firms. Nearly one-fifth of early-stage PE investments worldwide, around $15bn, were made in China.
The flood of money has inevitably affected valuations. While multiples of enterprise value to earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation for PE deals in the US averaged 10 times, in Asia-Pacific that figure was 17. According to both Preqin and Bain, a majority of PE investors are concerned about valuations.