MoneyGram and Ant Financial Call Off Merger, Citing Regulatory Concerns

[Borealis]

[URL]https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/02/business/moneygram-ant-financial-china-cfius.html?action=click&contentCollection=Business%20Day&module=RelatedCoverage&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article[/URL]

[QUOTE]WASHINGTON — United States officials have effectively killed a Chinese company’s $1.2 billion plan to buy MoneyGram, the money transfer company, signaling the Trump administration’s growing skepticism of Chinese purchases of American companies and of broader business ties between the two economic powers.

MoneyGram and Ant Financial, the Chinese electronic payments company, said Tuesday that they had canceled the deal after failing to win approval from a Washington panel that reviews foreign purchases of American companies.

The move comes amid a shifting relationship between the two countries. The MoneyGram-Ant Financial deal collapsed as tensions have grown over who will control the technologies of the future. As the scotched deal shows, China and America are also increasingly at loggerheads over whether private data will be kept safe as money and corporate ownership cross borders.

“The geopolitical environment has changed considerably since we first announced the proposed transaction with Ant Financial nearly a year ago,” the chief executive of MoneyGram, Alex Holmes, said.

The deal failed despite a charm offensive by Jack Ma, the Chinese internet tycoon who controls Ant Financial. Shortly after Mr. Trump won the 2016 election, Mr. Ma famously stood with the president-elect in Trump Tower in New York and pledged that his e-commerce empire would help create one million American jobs.[/QUOTE]

[Tamschi]

This one's a good outcome, even though the US aren't exactly a paragon of data safety and privacy either (to say the least).