ATHENS: As the risk of Greece leaving the euro zone looms larger, Chinese companies are making tentative assessments of potential buying opportunities in the country, according to banking sources.
China Premier Li Keqiang assured European leaders on Monday that the country wants Greece to remain in the currency area and urged international creditors to reach an agreement on its debt. But Chinese companies, though keen not to repeat mistakes they made in their flurry of during the 2008 financial crisis, are cautiously scouting out what bargains may be on offer if Greece leaves the bloc.
“They are looking at opportunities, waiting for the right moment to strike,” one senior Hong Kong-based M&A banker who regularly advises Chinese buyers told Reuters. Chinese firms have been snapping up European assets this year, spurred by on by the slide in the euro, which has fallen almost 20 percent against the dollar in the past 12 months. With $18.9 billion worth of deals done so far in 2015 according to Thomson Reuters data, Chinese companies are on track to break their 2008 European M&A record of $19.2 billion.
However they have largely stayed away from Greek assets, opting to stay on the sidelines while Greece and its European partners sparred over its debt obligations.The country’s airports, ports and power utilities would be attractive targets though if Greece left the euro, the banker said, as a resulting devaluation in its currency would spark a fall in asset prices. Hong Kong-based Friedmann Pacific Asset Management Ltd, which acquired a 49 percent stake in French airport Toulouse earlier this year, said the company is on the look out for possible investments in Greek airports.
