The Italian economy has been contracting since the second half of 2011, and it doesn’t appear that the country will exit the recession anytime soon. But amid the economic gloom, there’s a ray of good news: Chinese investment into the country has increased. According to data from Thomson Reuters, the number of deals with a Chinese acquiror in Italy in 2011 and in the first ten months of 2012 has tripled to six from its 2007 level of just two. (Not all of the transactions were captured in the data.) While the number of completed transactions remains smalland lawyers say that deals often move slowlyItalian and international law firms are vying to get a piece of this work, betting that the number of Chinese deals in the country will increase significantly over the next few years.
Flush with cash, Chinese investors, attracted by the opportunity to acquire name brands and technical know-how, are looking at Italian companies that have suffered from a lack of liquidity and financing. Earlier this year, for instance, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton advised Ferretti Holding, the company that controlled luxury yacht maker Ferretti SpA, as it sold a 75 percent stake to Chinese stateowned Shangdong Heavy Industry Group for $475 million. Italian firm Bonelli Erede Pappalardo, China’s King & Wood Mallesons, and U.S. firm Akerman Senterfitt advised Shangdong. “For Shangdong, Ferretti was a great deal,” says Roberto Casati, the Cleary partner who led the firm’s team on the transaction. “It acquired state-of-the-art knowledge in yacht-making that was built up over decades, and has incredible potential for growth in the Chinese market.”
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