LONDON: As European banks retrench to recover from the global financial meltdown, they are finding ready buyers in Asia for everything from loans to entire insurance and broking operations.
There are other tell-tale signs of a shift in power: this year's two biggest initial public offerings after Facebook were launched not in the United States or Europe, but in Malaysia.
Yet perhaps what is more striking is that, with one or two exceptions, Asian financial firms are not doing more in Europe itself to capitalise on the eurozone's festering debt and banking crisis.
Take China. The economy has more than doubled in size in five years. It has some of the biggest banks in the world.
And its appetite for snapping up natural resources is undiminished: witness last month's US$15.1bil agreement by state oil company CNOOC Ltd to buy Canada's Nexen Inc, the biggest foreign acquisition to date by a Chinese company.
When it comes to the financial sector, however, the glass is half-empty, not half-full, said Andre Loesekrug-Pietri, chairman of A Capital, a China-Europe investment fund.
“There's a front-cover story every other month about China buying up the world, but China is still a very small player in international M&A,” he said.
David Marsh, co-founder of a forum in London that connects central banks and sovereign wealth funds with banks and asset managers, said the West no longer had a monopoly on innovation and dynamism in financial services.
But China was playing a long game, biding its time and waiting for bargains. With plenty of bankers and traders being made redundant, Chinese firms have the chance gradually to build up teams and expertise rather than making giant acquisitions.
“They'll be much more clever than simply buying moribund banks at high prices: they'll be buying people,” Marsh said.
“What we're seeing now is just the precursor of a much bigger shift that will take place over the next 10 years, but it won't happen in one fell swoop.”
China has not been completely asleep on the acquisitions front.
Two Chinese private equity funds are on the final shortlist of bidders for the asset management arm of Franco-Belgian financial group Dexia, a deal that could be worth 500 million euros or more.
And CITIC Securities has agreed to buy CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, a highly regarded Hong Kong-based brokerage, from its French parent, Credit Agricole SA, in a two-stage transaction worth US$1.25bil.
The deal is symbolic. Whereas CITIC is China's biggest brokerage, Credit Agricole is battling mounting losses in Greece, the epicenter of the eurozone crisis, where it owns the country's sixth-largest bank, Emporiki.
“Distressed banks selling good assets always happens in a crisis like this. Banks which don't want to raise capital by issuing new equity end up selling their offshore assets, and typically they sell the crown jewels,” said Ken Courtis, founding partner of Themes Investment Management and a former vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia.
A clutch of other European financial institutions is also beating the retreat in Asia.
Britain's Royal Bank of Scotland has offloaded some of its Asia-Pacific investment banking operations to Malaysia's CIMB Group Holdings Bhd, while ING is selling its US$7bil Asia insurance business. Both banks had to be bailed out by their governments during the crisis.
Integrating independent-minded CLSA would be one of the biggest challenges for CITIC, Courtis said. Chinese financial institutions in general have a narrow bench of executives with the right linguistic and overseas management expertise - one reason why they are initially beefing up their offshore presence in more-or-less familiar Hong Kong, he said. Reuters
Yet perhaps what is more striking is that, with one or two exceptions, Asian financial firms are not doing more in Europe itself to capitalise on the eurozone's festering debt and banking crisis.
Take China. The economy has more than doubled in size in five years. It has some of the biggest banks in the world.
And its appetite for snapping up natural resources is undiminished: witness last month's US$15.1bil agreement by state oil company CNOOC Ltd to buy Canada's Nexen Inc, the biggest foreign acquisition to date by a Chinese company.
When it comes to the financial sector, however, the glass is half-empty, not half-full, said Andre Loesekrug-Pietri, chairman of A Capital, a China-Europe investment fund.
“There's a front-cover story every other month about China buying up the world, but China is still a very small player in international M&A,” he said.
David Marsh, co-founder of a forum in London that connects central banks and sovereign wealth funds with banks and asset managers, said the West no longer had a monopoly on innovation and dynamism in financial services.
But China was playing a long game, biding its time and waiting for bargains. With plenty of bankers and traders being made redundant, Chinese firms have the chance gradually to build up teams and expertise rather than making giant acquisitions.
“They'll be much more clever than simply buying moribund banks at high prices: they'll be buying people,” Marsh said.
“What we're seeing now is just the precursor of a much bigger shift that will take place over the next 10 years, but it won't happen in one fell swoop.”
China has not been completely asleep on the acquisitions front.
Two Chinese private equity funds are on the final shortlist of bidders for the asset management arm of Franco-Belgian financial group Dexia, a deal that could be worth 500 million euros or more.
And CITIC Securities has agreed to buy CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, a highly regarded Hong Kong-based brokerage, from its French parent, Credit Agricole SA, in a two-stage transaction worth US$1.25bil.
The deal is symbolic. Whereas CITIC is China's biggest brokerage, Credit Agricole is battling mounting losses in Greece, the epicenter of the eurozone crisis, where it owns the country's sixth-largest bank, Emporiki.
“Distressed banks selling good assets always happens in a crisis like this. Banks which don't want to raise capital by issuing new equity end up selling their offshore assets, and typically they sell the crown jewels,” said Ken Courtis, founding partner of Themes Investment Management and a former vice-chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia.
A clutch of other European financial institutions is also beating the retreat in Asia.
Britain's Royal Bank of Scotland has offloaded some of its Asia-Pacific investment banking operations to Malaysia's CIMB Group Holdings Bhd, while ING is selling its US$7bil Asia insurance business. Both banks had to be bailed out by their governments during the crisis.
Integrating independent-minded CLSA would be one of the biggest challenges for CITIC, Courtis said. Chinese financial institutions in general have a narrow bench of executives with the right linguistic and overseas management expertise - one reason why they are initially beefing up their offshore presence in more-or-less familiar Hong Kong, he said. Reuters
