Corporate M&As fall sharply in January: ChinaVenture

China's mergers and acquisitions declined significantly in January, data from Beijing-based research and consulting firm ChinaVenture showed Wednesday.

Chinese firms completed 120 mergers and acquisitions in January, down 52.94 percent from December, with a total transaction value of $8.38 billion, a plunge of 67.86 percent from a month ago, ChinaVenture said in a report sent to the Global Times Wednesday.

Finance, manufacturing and energy firms registered the largest number of transactions in January, with the finance firms completing 25 transactions, followed by 18 transactions by manufacturing firms and 11 by energy firms.

Firms in the financial sector posted the largest value of transactions, totaling $2.7 billion in January, followed by public utilities firms which achieved $1.2 billion in transactions.

The number of announced mergers and acquisitions also declined sharply in January, with 281 transaction totaling $20.3 billion, down 31.8 percent and 70.27 percent year-on-year respectively, the report said.

Among the announced transactions, two cases by Lenovo, the world's largest PC vendor by shipment, attracted widespread attention.

On January 30, Lenovo announced it would buy Motorola Mobility from Google for $2.9 billion in a bid to boost its smartphone business in the Americas and Western Europe.

This was preceded by the company having announced an acquisition of IBM's low-end server unit for $2.3 billion on January 23.