COMMENT When the Aluminium Corporation of China acquired a 9 per cent stake in Rio Tinto last month, the Chinese state-owned company pulled off a number of firsts. Not only was it the biggest ever overseas investment by a Chinese group, it was also the largest ever dawn raid on the London stock market.
Yet while most of the attention focused on what the share purchase meant for BHP Billiton’s efforts to acquire Rio Tinto, the acquisition heralded another important trend – the quiet revolution under way in the Chinese state sector, which has produced a new generation of confident companies with global ambitions.
