A desire to gain more access to non-conventional energy sources and a pursuit of luxury consumer brands are two key trends to emerge from a new Squire Sanders study on Chinese M&A trends in FY2012.

The report found that North America was the top target market for Chinese investors, with a share of 35% of overall deal value. Mao Tong, partner in Squire Sanders' Hong Kong office, said that non-conventional energy was likely to be an important motivating factor: "The Chinese government's 12th five-year plan (2011-2015) lays an emphasis on new energy resources, so the need for the technology and know-how to exploit China's deep shale gas reserves will maintain the country's interest in US and Canadian companies which are acknowledged leaders in this area," he said.

Sinopec has made major acquisitions in Brazil, Canada and the US over the past year and CNOOC recently made a bid for oil sands firm Nexen.

Tong added that a second trend was an increasing interest by Chinese companies in the consumer and particularly luxury market. "In fact, the largest outbound Chinese acquisition of all in the first half of this year was Dalian Wanda Group's US$2.6bn acquisition of AMC Entertainment, the US cinema chain, while the largest acquisition in the industrials & chemicals sector in 2012 so far also had a strong consumer flavour - Shandong Heavy Industry's purchase of Italian luxury yacht manufacturer Ferretti," said Tong.