Global M&As cross $4 trillion
Arcelor-Mittal is year’s 4th biggest deal
India Inc’s cross-border acquisitions may have topped $20 billion in 2006, but that is just a dot in the global M&A space, whose volume reached a record $4 trillion through 31,858 deals.
However, India-born steel tycoon L N Mittal’s merger of Mittal Steel and Arcelor emerged the world’s fourth biggest deal this year.
US telecom giant AT&T’s $83.4 billion buyout of BellSouth Corp, announced in March, is this year’s top M&A deal, according to data from global financial information provider Dealogic.
Spanish energy firm Endesa’s acquisition by Germany’s E.ON in a $66.2 billion deal has been placed second, followed by French firm Suez’s $43.1 billion takeover of Gaz de France at third.
The Arcelor Mittal deal, valued at $39.5 billion, came in fourth, followed by a $37.7 billion deal involving Italy’s banking majors Banca Intesa and Sanpaolo IMI. The 31,858 M&A deals worth $4 trillion this year represents a 34% jump over the $2.99 trillion from 30,639 deals last year, the latest data says.
Meanwhile, global research firm Standard & Poor’s said that record M&A activity in Europe this year—worth about $1.5 trillion—would be eclipsed in 2007.
The high percentage of cash used to finance deals in Europe indicates that the region is in early stages of the M&A cycle and the volumes should rise further, it said.
S&P’s chief European equity strategist Clive McDonnell said, “Only when we see investors switch their prefe-rence to using equity or bonds as the initial currency to finance acquisitions can we say that the M&A boom is entering its mature phase.”
—PTI
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