THE ghosts of past failures haunt China’s new M&A players. Most of the country’s big overseas takeovers to date have fared poorly.

    Large bets on oil, mines and finance were victims of terrible timing. Though more recent deals like ChemChina’s record US$44 billion takeover of Syngenta look less cyclical, real challenges remain.

    To date, thirteen of the 20 biggest completed deals by Chinese buyers outside the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong were in natural resources, Thomson Reuters data shows. Nine involved the state oil majors: Sinopec, China National Offshore Oil Co. and China National Petroleum. Another four were by State-backed specialists in metals, oilfield services, chemicals, and investment.

    Oil prices have more than halved since those deals were struck. And there were operational headaches too.

    CNOOC’s US$18 billion purchase of Nexen left the Chinese group grappling spills, fleeing civil war in Yemen, and struggling to extract crude from Canada’s tricky oil sands. Nomura analysts reckon CNOOC could soon be forced to take a US$5 billion-plus impairment charge on Nexen.

    The record is not much better outside commodities. The US$5.5 billion that ICBC ploughed into South Africa’s Standard Bank has more than halved in dollar terms.

    China Investment Corp. invested in Morgan Stanley and Blackstone ahead of the depths of the financial crisis.

    Shares in Portugal’s EDP are worth a fifth less than the price at which China Three Gorges invested US$3.5 billion in the utility. Hong Kong-listed WH Group is down roughly a third since floating in 2014, suggesting investors have lost their appetite for its US$7 billion push into U.S. pork.(SD-Agencies)