Behind many of the decisions of Chinese acquirers overseas lie the idiosyncratic needs of some 415m millennials. So distinctive are the tastes of the generation born in the final two decades of the last century that China’s emerging multinationals are scouring the world to answer their desires.
As Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, put it in a 2015 report: “Chinese millennials are probably the single most important demographic on the planet today.”
Not only is this individualistic, tech-savvy and internationally minded cohort reshaping the contours of China’s domestic consumer markets, it is also leaving an increasingly deep imprint on global M&A trends.