Global & Regional M&A Report
Submitted by Mergermarket, an Acuris Company and partner of the M&A Leadership Council
Mergermarket, an Acuris company, has released its Global M&A roundup for Q1 – Q3 of 2018, including its financial advisors league tables, and Q3 saw subdued M&A activity as growing geopolitical tensions, trade wars and protectionism dampened spirits and caused corporates to pause over the summer.
Take a look at the report HERE and don’t forget to review the charts breaking down the activity by sector, value, year-to-year analysis, etc.
A couple key findings include:
• A total US$ 703.2bn changed hands in Q3, the lowest quarterly value since Q1 2016 (US$ 627.9bn) and 35.4% lower than Q2 (US$ 1.09tn). There was a distinct lack of big-ticket deals conducted over the last three months, which dominated the headlines in H1. Just four deals worth more than US$ 10bn were recorded during the third quarter after 28 such deals were announced in H1. The largest deal conducted in the last three months saw Energy Transfer Equity acquire 97.64% of Energy Transfer Partners for US$ 59.6bn. Yet despite the quarterly drop in activity, 2018 has to date registered the second highest value on record behind 2007 (US$ 2.94tn) and with US$ 2.72tn across 13,575 deals announced so far
• With macro events playing a larger part in steering M&A this year, companies have continued looking closer to home instead of conducting high-profile cross-border deals. With tariffs introduced by the US and China and political protectionism creeping further into deal making considerations, advisors are having to contend with much harsher conditions. This is now leading corporates to consider more defensive domestic consolidation, bulking up in challenging times, while the deals will receive much lower levels of scrutiny. Consequently, domestic M&A increased by 30.6% on YTD 2017 to US$ 1.67tn – its highest YTD value on record. The US dominated global M&A once again, drawing in 47.5% of the global Q3 value, almost seven percentage points higher than that seen in 2017 (40.9%), with US$ 333.9bn announced in Q3. This pushed the country’s YTD value to US$ 1.14tn, 25.7% higher than YTD 2017 and the second highest YTD figure on Mergermarket record.
Again, you can download the full report HERE.
