Abstract: Chinese enterprises have begun to reach out overseas for merger and acquisition (M&A) since the 1990s when the global economic integration are rising. However, recently the lingering global epidemic, escalating trade friction and tightening regulatory policies at home have brought significant pressure on outbound investment. As the risks hidden in the cross-border M&A process came to light, many enterprises fell into financial crisis and had to undersell their assets for self-rescue purpose. This paper uses HNA Group, an experienced acquarier, as an example to explore whether a company can alleviate its financial crises by withdrawing from the market via asset selling or transfer. For this purpose, this study presents HNA Group’s M&A-based development milstones, then, analyzes, from the perspective of its motivation to launch M&As, the potential reasons why it chose to withdraw from the market, and applies financial analysis method to study the impact of market withdrawal on HNA Group’s long-term performance. The empirical results show that market withdrawal alleviates the financial crisis of HNA Group, but to a extent less than expected. Finally, based on the lesson learned from the failure of HNA Group, we provide four pieces of suggestions for Chinese enterprises to better manage their cross-border M&A activities.

Key words: market withdrawal, HNA Group, financial crisis, case study, financial analysis