Talk of an across-the-board merger and sell-off of 112 Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is helping to drive a renewed share-price surge for their reported 227 stock-listed subsidiaries, not least among the big four state-owned shipowning companies of China Ocean Shipping Group (Cosco), China Shipping Group (CSG), Sinotrans & CSC and China Merchant Group’s China Merchants Energy Shipping (CMES).
Within shipping, rumours that Beijing would order a general consolidation had already forced stock-listed companies including China Cosco Holdings, China Shipping Container Lines (CSCL), China Shipping Development Corp (CSDC) and others to deny two weeks ago that they knew of any mega-merger in the works.
