Home appliance maker Qingdao Haier Co announced Tuesday that it signed the closing documents for its acquisition of General Electric Co's (GE's) appliance unit, said a statement on Haier's website.
GE Appliances will remain based in Louisville, Kentucky and it will operate under the direction of the current management team, the statement said. A board of directors, with representatives from the senior leadership teams of Haier and GE Appliances, and two independent directors, will help guide the strategy and operations of the business.
The deal was originally announced on January 15. The final price was $5.6 billion.
The acquisition represents an important step for Haier's internationalization. In March 2012, Haier finished the acquisition of the refrigerator, washing machine and other consumer electric appliance businesses of Japan's SANYO Electric Co. That acquisition covered operations in Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam. In November 2012, Haier acquired New Zealand's Fisher & Paykel Appliances Holdings.
Other domestic appliance makers are also eyeing overseas opportunities. Haier's rival Midea Group Co announced in March that it would acquire an 80.1 percent stake in Toshiba Corp's home appliance unit. On May 18, Midea announced plans to increase its stake in leading German industrial robot maker KUKA AG. That deal has drawn some opposition from the German government, which has been courting potential buyers that include ABB Ltd and Siemens AG, media reports said.
The world center for home appliance manufacturing has been moving from Japan to South Korea and China, analysts said. Before long, China may have world-class home appliance producers similar to Siemens AG and Sharp Corp.
In the first quarter, overseas mergers and acquisitions by Chinese companies topped $82.6 billion, more than all previous annual figures, according to a report from PwC in April.
Zhang Guojun, a partner at PwC, said that the overseas shopping spree by Chinese companies will last for at least another five years, as their internationalization has just started, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Monday.
