There has not yet been a single cross-border acquisition or merger among the large defence contractors.
"You have to worry about management and cultural issues that occur normally in any merger that may be much greater in a cross-border acquisition," Mr. Wallace said.
This will be MOL's second cross-border acquisition, having snapped up 36% of Slovnaft, Slovakia's sole refinery, in 2000, before acquiring majority control last November.
For they know something China is about to learn: it takes very hard work to make a cross-border acquisition succeed.
Bought American icon Bobcat for $5 billion last month the biggest cross-border acquisition in South Korean history.
Overall, there were 114 domestic and cross-border acquisitions and mergers involving UK companies in the first quarter, valued at about £68bn.
Continued growth, healthy balance sheets and steady cash inflows helped Indian software concerns make bold cross-border acquisitions of software, auto components, drugs, telecommunications and other businesses.
As cross-border acquisitions have proliferated and companies have moved manufacturing operations overseas, it has become increasingly difficult to categorize corporations and their products by country of origin.
After a brief fall following the financial crisis of 2008, the number and size of cross-border acquisitions by the challengers rebounded strongly in 2010.
Many of the deals were cross-border acquisitions, dominated by Spanish firms buying everything in Britain that was not nailed to the floor.
In the first eight months of 2005, France topped the league table for European cross-border acquisitions, bagging €59.5 billion ($71.8 billion), according to Dealogic, a banking analyst.
