Location choice of cross-border mergers and acquisitions of port and shipping service enterprises in China: characteristics, process and influencing factors

Cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) is one of the main ways for multinational enterprises to access international capital, explore international markets, and participate in global operations. Based on defining the connotation of port and shipping service enterprises (PSSEs), this paper takes the cross-border M&As of PSSEs in China as a research case, and uses spatial analysis technology and conditional Logit model to study the spatial distribution characteristics and main driving factors of the 202 cross-border M&As of PSSEs from 1993 to 2021. Research results are as follows: (1) Cross-border M&As of PSSEs in China are generally divided into four stages: the proximity layout before 2000, the localized agglomeration in 2001–2008, the diffusion distribution in 2009–2016, and the steady expansion from 2017 to the present. (2) The cross-border M&As shows a northeast-southwest direction, and its center of gravity shows a clear trend of moving westward. (3) Overall, the cross-border M&As exhibits an agglomeration trend. From 2001 to 2008, there was no significant correlation. From 2009 to 2016, a negative correlation was observed, while a positive correlation appeared after 2017. These patterns align with the timeline of major national strategies. (4) Among the driving factors affecting the location choice of cross-border M&As, market size of the host country, economic freedom, shipping scale, liner transportation connectivity and institutional distance present a positive impact, while road network density, informatization level and proportion of high-tech product exports present a significant negative impact, and the impact of geographical distance is not significant.