Worldwide M&A has posted its best first quarter statistics since 2007, as it rose 58 per cent over year-to-date 2010 results.
Worldwide M&A has posted its best first quarter statistics since 2007, as it rose 58 per cent over year-to-date 2010 results.
The Thomson Reuters review found that worldwide M&A totalled $717 billion (£449 billion) so far in 2011, compared to $512 billion in 2010 and $495 billion in 2009.
Quarterly total value for European targets reached $180 billion, significantly up from its year-to-date 2010 showing of $109 billion.
However, total deal values were down compared to the last quarter of 2010 when M&A volumes grew sharply to $758 billion.
Leon Saunders Calvert, head of global deals at Thomson Reuters, believes that the year-on-year increase in volume can be attributed in part to the return of private equity to the market. Private equity involvement is reported to have increased by 50 per cent on last year.
Calvert adds: ‘M&A activity for the start of the year continues to build upon the positive trajectory from 2010. Confidence in global markets, the primary driver of M&A volumes, continues to improve despite the recent natural disaster in Japan and the ongoing political turmoil in the Middle East.’
The biggest contributors to the increased totals were energy and power (17 per cent change year-on-year), financials (77 per cent change year-on-year) and materials (133 per cent change year-on-year).
Thomson Reuters findings also found that Goldman Sachs were the big fallers in the worldwide M&A advisory work league, falling from first to fourth in 2011.
Morgan Stanley rose from fifth to first on the back of its involvement in the two largest acquisitions in 2011, that of AIG and T-Mobile USA.
Credit Suisse retained its top billing in the European advisory league.
‘Whilst the near future for M&A looks positive, the constituents of the growing marketplace continue to change as the bulge-bracket banks struggle to retain market share against smaller and regional players,’ Calvert says.
