| The act of cross-border M&A is one of the main ways for multinational enterprises to acquire international capital,develop international markets and participate in globalised operations.The report of the 20 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China(CPC)states that Chinese modernisation must be used to promote a wider and higher level of opening up.In this context,Chinese enterprises,as the main force in the international M&A market,have become one of the most important development methods for domestic enterprises to respond positively to the country’s "going out" strategy and to achieve global production and operation.The strategic importance of ports in the global economic and geographical landscape is becoming increasingly prominent.With globalisation,informatisation and marketisation,the return on investment in the modern port and maritime industry is gradually increasing,and global terminal operators are actively participating in and promoting globalised operations,with the port and maritime industry in a period of dynamic development.According to the Global Port Development Report(2021),the international container transport market as a whole will show an oversupply in 2021,with the scale of port container throughput exceeding the pre-epidemic level and the growth rate rebounding from-0.9% to 6.5%.Guided by the spirit of the 20 th Party Congress,a number of port and maritime enterprises with strong capital and advanced management have emerged in the Chinese port and maritime market and are actively participating in international competition to be the front-runners in building Chinese-style modern ports in terms of openness and cooperation.Against the backdrop of the continuous improvement of the comprehensive level of China’s port and shipping industry,and along with the gradual saturation of the domestic port and shipping market,the development trend of Chinese port and shipping enterprises to expand their overseas business space is bound to strengthen.Based on the current situation,this paper examines the overseas M&A activities of Chinese port and shipping companies through literature review,spatial analysis techniques and empirical research.The paper combines the Zephyr Global M&A Transaction Database,the SDC Cross-Border M&A Database and the Wind Financial Database to compile 202 cross-border M&A events of Chinese port and shipping companies(including tax-avoidance offshore financial centres)between 1993 and2021,and explores the development of cross-border M&A of Chinese port and shipping companies by means of aggregating data and producing statistical charts.The development of cross-border M&As of Chinese port and shipping enterprises is explored by aggregating data and creating statistical charts.The spatio-temporal evolution pattern of M&As of port and shipping enterprises was analysed by combining Arc GIS and Geo Da software with kernel density estimation,standard deviation ellipses and spatial autocorrelation.After excluding the cross-border M&A events of Chinese port and shipping enterprises registered in tax-haven offshore financial centres,109 valid cross-border M&A events were obtained.Based on this,a conditional logit model was constructed,and nine explanatory variables were selected from four dimensions,namely,hinterland support factors,port and shipping operation factors,strategic asset factors and home and host country heterogeneity,to form a system of factors influencing the location choice of Chinese port and shipping enterprises for cross-border M&A The variables include: host country market size,economic freedom,maritime scale,liner shipping connectivity,road network density,information technology level,export share of high-tech products,and bilateral institutional distance and geographical distance.Finally,based on the current situation of cross-border M&As of Chinese port and shipping enterprises and the results of the study on the factors influencing location choice,policy recommendations are made to improve the success rate of cross-border M&As of port and shipping enterprises and to achieve sustainable development and spatial optimisation.Based on the above research,the following conclusions are drawn:(1)Chinese port and shipping enterprises’ cross-border M&As are generally divided into four stages,namely,proximity before 2000,local agglomeration from 2001 to 2008,diffusion and distribution from 2009 to 2016,and a pattern of steady development from 2017 to the present.(2)Cross-border M&A by Chinese port and shipping enterprises has a northeast-southwest trend,with the centre of gravity of M&A generally showing an obvious trend towards the west.(3)Overall,cross-border M&As of Chinese port and shipping enterprises show a clustering trend,of which there is no significant correlation from 2001 to 2008,a negative correlation from 2009 to 2016,and a positive correlation after 2017,which coincides with the timing of the introduction of major strategies in China,indicating that the development of cross-border M&As of Chinese port and shipping enterprises’ cross-border M&A development is profoundly influenced by the national strategy.(4)Among the driving factors affecting the location choice of Chinese port and shipping enterprises’ cross-border M&A,the economic freedom of the host country,market size,maritime scale,liner transport connectivity and institutional distance have a positive influence on port and shipping enterprises’ cross-border M&A,while road network density,informationization level and the export share of high-tech products have a significant negative influence,and the influence of bilateral geographical distance is not significant.Based on the findings of this paper,policy recommendations are provided for Chinese port and maritime enterprises to carry out cross-border M&A transactions: At the enterprise level,China needs to make a reasonable choice of location for cross-border M&A according to its actual situation,so that it can maximise the benefits.At the national level,differentiated policy measures can be formulated to actively encourage domestic port and maritime enterprises to carry out technology-seeking cross-border M&A according to the development situation of each region. |
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