Corporate shoppers take a breather

Overseas M&A's coast on the China-led Belt & Road Initiative, but hit bumps in rising valuations, stricter regulations

After the euphoria over outbound M&A, or mergers and acquisitions, last year, it's time to get back to senses this year and stage a recovery next year - that sums up Chinese companies' current thinking.

Chinese companies never had it so good in M&A as they did last year. They spent $212.5 billion, almost 3.5 times that of 2015, to merge with, or acquire, companies overseas in 920 deals, up 142.1 percent from 2015, according to accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.