After waiting more than three years for Chinese regulators to give the
$178.4 million deal a thumb's up, Carlyle withdrew its offer Tuesday. While the
busted deal is only a speed bump for the Washington firm that has
already invested over $1.3 billion in Chinese companies over the last
24 months, the blown buyout is increasingly being pointed to as
evidence of a growing protectionist sentiment in China.
Seeking Alpha notes
that "an executive at another Chinese machinery maker had campaigned
openly against the Carlyle bid with blog postings that took a strong
nationalist slant. The executive wrote that "selling anything is fine,
but selling out the country is wrong."
After having spent years encouraging foreign capital to come into the
country in order to speed up development, it seems the almost
inevitable backlash against "foreigners owning everything" may now be
in the works. - George White
See story on TheDeal.com
See Seeking Alpha post
