China’s record-breaking demand for overseas assets underpinned cross-border mergers and acquisitions in the first half of the year — but confidence that the country’s corporations can drive further dealmaking has waned, after several groups recently dropped out of bid talks at key moments.

Chinese companies agreed to $121.1bn in cross-border deals between January and June, according to data from Thomson Reuters, smashing the country’s all-time record for full-year outbound M&A, which was set at $111.5bn in 2015.

This aggressive buying by some of China’s largest state-owned and private enterprises contrasted sharply with the slowest first-half for global M&A since 2013. Activity in North America and Europe fell away as markets responded to political instability ahead of the US presidential election and the UK vote to leave the EU.