Identifying Key Success Factors of Cross-border Mergers and Acquisitions for Chinese State-owned Enterprises

In recent years, China has vigorously promoted domestic enterprises to conduct direct foreign investment and promote the internationalization of Chinese enterprises. Stateowned enterprises in China are the main exporters of China's foreign direct investment. Research on the factors of success or failure in cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) is gradually attracting the attention of scholars all over the world. This paper discusses the successful factors of Chinese stateowned enterprises' cross-border M&A by studying the relevant literature and drawing on previous research and achievements. From the Zephyr M&A transaction database, this paper selects 481 valid transaction data of Chinese state-owned enterprises' cross-border mergers and acquisitions from 1997 to 2017 using the seven influencing factors selected by the analytic hierarchy process as variables and introduces a binary logistic regression model to analyze the sample data by using SPSS software. This paper classifies success factors into three categories: macro level, micro level and transaction level. By using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to determine the index weight of different levels, the main three categories can be management system of host country, host divided into seven influencing factors, which include the host country economy system, country and home country from formal institution, informal system from the host country and home country, the acquiring firm's experience of transnational M&A, target company industry on the sensitivity of the host country, and acquisitions. Keywords—OFDI; M&A; SOE; success factor; China