HNA Group Co. cancelled its A$280 million (US$207 million) purchase of an Australian logistics business Monday, with the seller citing cash flow problems at the conglomerate among reasons for the deal’s collapse.

HNA’s unsolicited offer for Automotive Holdings Group Ltd.’s (AHG) refrigerated trucking arm landed last November, at the tail end of the firm’s US$50 billion two-year acquisition spree and just as concerns about its financing costs began to surface.

“Unfortunately ... HNA has run into liquidity problems which, combined with the delayed FIRB process, left the conditions precedent unable to be satisfied,” managing director John McConnell said in a statement, referring to Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB).

Last week, AHG had said it was still in talks with HNA, including discussing an HNA request for funding support, but Monday McConnell said those talks had ended.

HNA, best known as the owner of Hainan Airlines Co., is unloading assets and shareholdings — having agreed to sell US$10 billion in real estate this year, along with stakes in Deutsche Bank AG and Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc.

Capital control restrictions placed by Chinese regulators in recent years have also been weighing on HNA’s deal activity, and it has faced push-back in several countries due to concerns about its murky ownership structure.

Last year it was blocked from buying a car loan company in New Zealand, in part because the country’s foreign investment regulator was worried about the conglomerate’s financial stability. Regulatory delays also scuppered its plans to buy a stake in U.S. hedge fund Skybridge Capital.

(SD-Agencies)