HNA went overseas again to "sweep the goods. Just four days after announcing its acquisition of high-end real estate in Midtown, New York, HNA made another move to buy Swiss airline catering company Camry Group for $1.5 billion in cash.

On April 11, HNA Group and Camry Group (GategroupHoldingAG) announced that HNA Group offered to buy Camry at 53 Swiss francs per share, which was unanimously approved by Camry's board of directors.

Camry is a Swiss-based airline catering, hotel and aircraft supplier with operations in more than 100 locations in 30 countries on six continents and employs about 22000 people. Tan Xiangdong, HNA's president, said the acquisition would make Camry "an undisputed leading catering provider". HNA Group plans to withdraw Camry from the Swiss Stock Exchange after the transaction is completed, and Camry will become an independent business company of HNA Group. Camry's headquarters remain in Switzerland, managed by the current leadership team.

According to the announcement of Camry Group, the transaction still needs to be approved by 67% of the shareholders of the board of directors. The specific details of the transaction will be released on May 11, one month later. The transaction period will be between May 27 and June 23, and the final result will be announced on July 13.

$17 billion in acquired assets in the past year

According to Bloomberg data, in the past year, HNA Group's M & A assets around the world were worth at least $17 billion. In February 2016, HNA acquired Ingram Micro (IngramMicro), the world's largest provider of technology products and supply chain services, for $6 billion (about 38.8 billion yuan).

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Ingram Micro ranked 256th in the Fortune Global 500 and 69th in the US 500 in 2014. The acquisition of Ingram Micro will obviously upgrade HNA's logistics management system and make HNA's existing management more scientific and efficient. On the other hand, Ingram Micro's business layout in North America and Europe will also enhance HNA's overseas business network expansion, especially in the United States. Ingram Micro's business in North America accounted for 43% of its total revenue in 2014, while Chinese companies have always been difficult to open up in the US market. The acquisition of Ingram Micro will become an outpost for HNA to seize the US market.

In July 2015, HNA acquired the world's largest ground service and freight forwarding SwissportGroup headquartered in Switzerland for 2.73 billion Swiss francs (about 17.5 billion yuan).

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Swissport operates more than 270 airports in 48 countries on 5 continents. It serves 0.224 billion passengers and 4.1 million tons of cargo around the world every year, and has more than 700 customers and about 60000 employees, with an annual income of about 3 billion Swiss francs.

HNA Group has five major industry sectors, namely, aviation, industry, finance, tourism and logistics. However, judging from this transaction, HNA's ambition seems to be far more than logistics. It is even said that HNA in the future may not have a logistics sector, but will be replaced by a supply chain sector.

HNA has acquired several foreign airlines in recent years, including France, Brazil and South Africa. Last year, it acquired Swissport, the world's largest provider of aviation ground services and cargo services, with the aim of building a strong global logistics system. At the same time, HNA has a comprehensive freight channels and warehouses in the country, which can be described as a mature logistics network.

"Buy buy buy" behind the global supply chain ambitions

However, logistics is only a part of trade after all. HNA has abundant resources in many sectors. Simple logistics obviously cannot meet HNA's ambitions.

What HNA has to do is to contract down the entire supply chain in international trade. To this end, HNA has established its own international trading company. The following is the introduction from the official website of HNA International Trade Company: HNA International Trade Co., Ltd. relies on HNA's own advantages such as international logistics, domestic cross-border e-commerce bonded warehousing and efficient customs clearance capabilities, and conducts direct source mining in Europe, the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Australia through the global procurement network, focusing on building a supply chain service capability that combines cross-border commodity procurement and international transportation, it aims to provide comprehensive cross-border e-commerce solutions for domestic e-commerce enterprises. In terms of supply service, it focuses on four categories of mother and infant, personal care, health care and fashion products, with more than 5,000 international brand supplier resources and SKU reserves exceeding 150,000. Customized solutions are available based on partner needs.

In this way, the benefits of HNA's global "buy, buy and buy" are far more than the reinforcement in the logistics field, but in order to reach out to the source of goods with one hand and the other to the downstream dealers, and then contract the entire foreign trade supply chain with the help of its own global freight network.

Of course, these sources and dealers are global. By extending the industrial chain, HNA will not only touch the more profitable distribution business, but also integrate and optimize the entire supply chain and provide various bridge services, such as using its own strong financial support to carry out logistics finance.