A consortium of investors surrounding China National Chemical Corp, also known as ChemChina – China's biggest chemical producer and rival to Monsanto in the race to swallow up Swiss agrochemicals giant Syngenta – is paying €925 million (around $1 billion) to acquire German plastics and rubber machinery manufacturer KraussMaffei from Canadian private equity investor Onex.

Onex acquired the business in 2012 for €568 million from Madison Capital Partners in a bidding war that included Asian investors. In addition to ChemChina, another Chinese machinery manufacturer, Haitian, had shown interest in the business, as well as Japan's Sumitomo and US machinery maker Milacron.

The KraussMaffei takeover, expected to close in the first half of this year, will be the biggest-ever by a Chinese company in Germany. Investors involved in the financing include private-equity firm AGIC Capital and Chinese state fund Guoxin International Investment Corp.

In addition to the KraussMaffei machinery brand, the German company, which was acquired by Mannesmann in 1989 with the combined assets split up and rebranded as KraussMaffei, also owns the brands Netstal and Berstorff.

ChemChina said it would retain KraussMaffei’s headquarters at Munich. 2,800 of the machinery maker’s 4,500 employees are based in Germany.

One of China's most active investors abroad, the state-owned company has bought businesses in France, Britain and Israel, and agreed last year to pay $7.7 billion for Italian tire maker Pirelli.