Word: deale
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...state-owned companies fanning out across the globe trying to invest in or buy foreign producers of minerals, precious metals, oil and gas, China's Ministry of Commerce on March 18 formally blocked what would have been the largest acquisition by a foreign company in China, a $2.4 billion deal...
...Coke on Sept. 3 announced a deal to buy Beijing-based Huiyuan Juice Group, a privately owned company started by a Chinese entrepreneur 17 years ago. Huiyuan, whose stock is traded on the Hong Kong exchange, is the largest producer of pure orange juice in the country, with over 40% of the market. Although Huiyuan's founders and major shareholders endorsed the sale, the government blocked it on antitrust grounds, arguing that the acquisition would have hurt small orange-juice producers in China and led to higher prices for consumers...
...deal was widely seen as the first big test of an antitrust law that Beijing enacted last August. In the eyes of foreign investors, that test is now officially a failure. Together, Coke and Huiyuan's combined share of the orange-juice market - itself just a sliver of the overall nonalcoholic-beverage market - would have been around 20%. The segment Huiyuan dominates - undiluted OJ - is for pricier products and is relatively small. Coca-Cola's Minute Maid brand plays in the less expensive, larger segment of the market. (Read a TIME story on Coke...
...Beijing were befuddled by the Ministry of Commerce's ruling. "From a purely competitive point of view, this would not have affected the [nonalcoholic-beverage] market," says Michael Gu, a lawyer specializing in corporate finance with the Zhong Lun Law Firm. Before the ruling, a source close to the deal from the Coca-Cola side said, "There is just not a competition issue, no matter how you look at it." He called the proposed acquisition a "marriage made in heaven...
...Blogger Zhang Xianfeng retorted, "The problem with selling to a multinational company is that it's no longer Chinese deciding which part of the pig you get to eat." A survey by Xinhua, China's state-owned news agency, found that more than 80% of Internet commentary on the deal was negative. (See the 50 best websites...