Some Interesting M&A Data
Provided by Mergermarket, a Partner of M&A Leadership Council

Mergermarket has released its Global M&A roundup for the first quarter of 2016, including its league tables for financial advisors. Take a look at the report HERE.

A few key findings include:

• After a record year for M&A in 2015, 16.2% higher than 2007’s previous peak, there has been a cooling down period at the start of 2016. Global M&A is re-balancing towards a sustainable level with Q1 2016 amounting to US$ 597.4bn. Following a significant drop from the previous three quarters that all posted more than US$ 1tn, it was the lowest first-quarter value in two years, down 24% from Q1 2015
• China has scaled up its search for foreign targets with its outbound activity accounting for a 26.3% share of total cross-border deals during Q1 2016, a steep increase considering no full year has ever surpassed 7.6%. China’s outbound M&A amounted to US$ 81.7bn in the first quarter, already a record annual total. The country attempted its largest US outbound acquisition in history when Anbang Insurance offered to buy Starwood Hotels and Resorts for US$ 6.5bn. In another deal, China National Corporation made the largest deal of Q1 when it acquired Switzerland-based Syngenta for US$ 45.9bn. And in yet another transaction, Tianjin Tianhai Investment bought US-based Ingram Micro for US$ 6.1bn
• The mega-deal frenzy that started in 2014 is winding down as companies look towards less sizeable deals. During Q1 2016, there were eight mega-deals (>US$10bn) valued at US$ 158.5bn, down from 13 worth US$ 259.4bn in Q1 2015, but still the second highest Q1 value since 2009 (seven worth US$ 209.8bn). The average deal size for global transactions in the first three months reached US$ 367m, down from the highest average deal size for any year during 2015 (US$ 463.3bn)