Why You'll Hear More on Mixed Ownership in China: QuickTake Q&A

Unicom Group, China’s second-largest mobile carrier, recently announced an $11.7 billion share sale that bolsters a government push to promote what it calls "mixed-ownership reforms" for its inefficient state-owned enterprises. Mixed ownership is China’s way of describing the sale of minority stakes in state-owned companies to private investors. The idea -- or at least the hope -- is to make these state-owned enterprises more efficient without surrendering state control.

In addition to their huge scale, they’re known for inefficiency when compared with privately owned companies. China’s state enterprises recorded return on assets of 2.8 percent, versus 10.6 percent for private sector-firms in 2015, according to data compiled by the Peterson Institute for International Economics.