10 iconic American companies owned by Chinese investors
o, June 01, 2017, https://www.msn.com/en-us/mone...s/ss-BBB0Zsy#image=1
Chinese conglomerates have been buying stakes in U.S. companies and real estate for several years. But that still didn't mute the shock in March when word spread that the country's HNA Group was in talks to buy a controlling stake in the publisher of Forbes magazine.
In fact, HNA was one of two Chinese companies reportedly mulling a bid. But the idea of a company from a communist country owning a U.S. news organization caught many people off guard. Chinese companies, though, own part or all of a number of companies that impact American lives on a daily basis, and many people aren't aware of it.
Whether you're going to the movies, washing your clothes or preparing dinner, there's a good chance some of the money you spent to do so eventually found its way to China.
Click ahead for a look at some of the bigger business names which are owned by Chinese companies.
While this deal is still pending, it cleared a notable hurdle in late December, getting the green light from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). The group said it had "no unresolved national security concerns" over the deal, despite some concerns raised in Congress.
The nation's largest movie theater chain was bought by Dalian Wanda in 2012 for $2.6 billion. Chinese businessman Wang Jianlin, who runs Dalian, has a taste for Hollywood, having also bought a major film studio (see the next page). And last November, AMC added Carmike Cinemas to its holdings for $1.2 billion.
After getting a taste of show business with the AMC purchase, Dalian Wanda bought a movie studio to go with its theaters in 2016. The $3.5 billion deal put Dalian in charge of the co-financier of "Jurassic World," "Warcraft" and "Pacific Rim."
This $7.1 billion dollar deal, completed in 2013, remains the largest purchase of an American firm by a Chinese company. Virginia-based Smithfield Foods has been an icon of the American food industry and is best known for its hams (especially its holiday ham).
Stoves, refrigerators, washers and dryers from General Electric have been around for over 100 years, but starting last year, the appliance division of the iconic company has been Chinese owned. The $5.4 billion deal by Qingdao Haier was China's largest acquisition of an overseas electronics business.
Anabang Insurance Group, the buyer of this well-known Manhattan hotel was unknown in 2014, when it paid nearly $2 billion for the establishment. But it has since become a more common name to investors, buying U.S. insurer Fidelity & Guaranty Life last fall and attempting to buy Starwood Resorts, only to lose out to Marriott at the last minute.
Anabang's interest in the hotel sector weren't limited to the Waldorf and Starwood. Last year, Blackstone Group sold its line of luxury hotels to the Chinese company for $3.93 billion (roughly $6 billion including debt). The deal put Anabang in charge of 16 properties, including assorted Ritz-Carlton locations in California, the Fairmont Scottsdale in Arizona, and the Four Seasons Resort in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
"League of Legends" is one of the biggest titles in the video game world, and is responsible, in part, for the boom in eSports of the past eight years. It's a billion dollar franchise, but creator Riot Games started as an independent game developer. In 2011, though, Chinese holding company Tencent bought a majority stake in Riot for $400 million, and in 2015 bought the rest of the company for an undisclosed amount.
Ingram Micro's name may be a bit less familiar to consumers, but the company distributes everything from Apple's iPhone to Cisco's network equipment.
Motorola was an early leader in the telecommunications space, dating back to 1928. As mobile devices began to dominate the industry, it spun its handset division off into the independent Motorola Mobility, which was bought by Google in 2012.