Bottom line: Fosun’s New York IPO plan for US insurer Ironshore could draw strong interest due to Fosun’s China and global connections, and may ultimately raise up to $1 billion later this year.
Fosun eyes NY listing for Ironshore
China’s recent global buying spree has created some interesting investment opportunities, as Chinese acquirers increasingly look to western investors to help pay for their purchases. One such new opportunity is in the headlines this week, with word that Chinese private equity giant Fosun (HKEx: 656) is aiming to launch a New York IPO for its recently acquired US insurer Ironshore. In this growing trend, the Chinese investors are hoping to generate some buzz for this kind of IPO by taking regionally-focused assets and repositioning them as global plays, often with a big China focus. Read Full Post…
Bottom line: Citic Capital and Fosun are expanding their tastes beyond the traditional Chinese preference for distressed assets, reflecting growing sophistication and diverging strategies of China’s emerging private equity buyers.
Citic Capital in group buying OmniVision
Chinese private equity is in a few major headlines this week, picking up assets in the technology, insurance and retail sectors in the US and Japan. The wide range of deals and geographies reflects the diverging strategies of some of China’s emerging private equity giants, which are rapidly developing their own individual personalities on the global stage. Citic Capital is behind 2 of the latest deals, picking up a retail asset in Japan and a US company that specializes in imaging technology. Meantime, Fosun International (HKEx: 656) has made a major new purchase in the US, offering to buy the remaining stake in an insurer that it first invested in last year. Read Full Post…
Gas stations were never that attractive to me as an investment, but a group of major firms seem to think differently as oil refining giant Sinopec (HKEx: 386; Shanghai: 600028) gets set to sell up to 30 percent of its retail arm. That’s my conclusion, following reports that domestic investment giant Fosun (HKEx: 656) and Internet leader Tencent (HKEx: 700), and Canadian retailer Alimentation Couche-Tard (Toronto: ATDb) are among the finalists bidding for a stake in the Sinopec unit. In separate headlines, the acquisitive Fosun is also reportedly in talks for another mega deal that would see it purchase the US unit of global insurance giant Swiss Re (Switzerland: SREX). Read Full Post…
