Death of a deal

Choe Sang-hun of the New York Times has an interesting postmortem on the Shanghai Automotive Industry's attempts to expand overseas by buying Ssangyong (Twin Dragons), South Korea's fourth largest automaker.

Walloped by declining sales and bitter battles with its Chinese parent, Ssangyong filed for bankruptcy protection last month. Its combative labor unions and some South Korean commentators have vilified Shanghai Auto as an exploitative owner that siphoned off Ssangyong’s technology, reneged on promises to invest, and dumped the company when the market turned sour.

Mr Choe writes good stuff, getting to the heart of the matter while remaining objective.