China Minmetals, which on Sunday concluded China's biggest-ever overseas mining acquisition, traces its roots to a US-led trade embargo against China.

Struggling to get the economy on its feet and blocked from trading with the most developed nations, China's government set up two companies to import ores and power equipment in the early 1950s. The two later merged into Minmetals, one of the nation's most internationally minded state-owned enterprises but also a fierce guardian of its own privilege.

Now a $53bn company with 17,700 employees, Minmetals heads the consortium that bought the Las Bambas copper mine in Peru from international trading giant Glencore Xstrata for $5.85bn.

It partnered with the metals division of Citic Group - another powerful SOE that traces its roots to China's early market reforms of the late 1970s - and Guoxin, a state-backed investment fund.

This is not the first time Minmetals has combined state privilege with trading savvy. It battled Chinese bureaucrats' political interference in iron ore negotiations, but also profited by selling iron ore purchased overseas at low-term prices to Chinese customers at high spot prices.

The Las Bambas deal typifies Minmetals' favoured position in the Chinese state. The ministry of commerce mandated that Las Bambas be sold to a Chinese company in return for approving Glencore's merger with Xstrata.

Meanwhile, China's powerful planning agency does not want Chinese companies bidding against each other for international assets, which might raise the price. Minmetals won an internal 'beauty pageant', beating out top copper manufacturer Jiangxi Copper and the copper division of Aluminum Corp of China for the designation as sole bidder for Las Bambas.

The deal also shows its international outlook, compared with the generally conservative culture of big Chinese SOEs.

Minmetals paid $1.39bn for Australian zinc producer OZ Minerals in 2009, and has fashioned that company into Hong Kong-listed MMG, its vehicle for other international acquisitions - including the $1.3bn purchase of DRC-focused copper miner Anvil in 2012.

MMG is about to gain a lot more power as it embraces the Las Bambas operation.

MMG, under chief executive Andrew Michelmore, is the first example of westerners with managerial authority in a Chinese SOE. The experiment is a new one for Chinese companies, says industry consultant Michael Komesaroff of Urandaline Investments, but carries its own pitfalls - including the potential desire of Chinese managers to have the same autonomy Minmetals has granted the foreigners.