At $35 billion, the volume of Chinese outbound mergers and acquisitions is at its lowest tally for the first six months of the year since 2013, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The total represents a 75% drop from the peak of such M&A activity in the first half of 2016, when China National Chemical Corp. agreed to buy Swiss agrochemical maker Syngenta AG for $43 billion.
Of the first-half total, only $6.8 billion was from US acquisitions, representing a 17% drop from a year earlier. Among those deals, Chinese buyout firm Hony Capital Ltd.was part of a consortium that invested $700 million in US filmmaker STX Entertainment.
Dealmakers say that trade tensions between the US and China, which have led to rising tariffs on both countries’ goods, have affected the pace of acquisitions.