Beijing's plan to invest $5 billion in Morgan Stanley caps a milestone year for China's deal makers: For the first time, Chinese companies and the government bought more overseas than foreign buyers have invested in China.
Chinese buyers have spent $29.2 billion acquiring foreign companies so far this year, while investors from the rest of the world have bought $21.5 billion of Chinese companies, according to Thomson Financial.
The investment in Morgan Stanley will give state-run China Investment Corp. -- a sovereign-wealth fund, essentially the government's money pile -- as much as 9.9% of the Wall Street giant.