"Already we are seeing a significant number of Asian companies making large transformational acquisitions into Europe that will give them significant competitive advantage back in Asia," said Kojima.

It is not surprising that European companies are eyeing the big Asian countries for their investment plans. China is at the top of the mind of top executives of 81 per cent of the companies surveyed, followed by India at 69 per cent. A third investment preference is Japan at 29 per cent.

DC Advisory Partners is a wholly-owned European M&A arm of securities brokerage firm Daiwa Securities Group.