After three consecutive year-on-year rise, global mergers and acquisitions deal value declined by 21 per cent to $3.69 trillion this year.
According to global deal tracking firm Dealogic, in 2016, the number of M&A deal value fell 21 per cent over last year, while M&A revenue declined by 6 per cent by mid-December.
“Global M&A volume reached $3.69 trillion by December 16, 2016, down 21 per cent compared to the 2015 full-year record high of $4.66 trillion,” Dealogic said in a report.
Interestingly, the fourth quarter global M&A ($1.12 trillion) hit the $1-trillion mark in the first week of December, the biggest quarter since the October-December period of 2015, when transactions stood at $1.39 trillion.
This is only the “tenth time that quarterly volume has surpassed the trillion mark”, Dealogic said.
AT&T’s $107.9-billion bid for Time Warner, announced on October 22, is the seventh largest M&A transaction on record and the biggest deal announced in 2016.
The biggest year-on-year drop was in domestic M&A, down 26 per cent to $2.40 trillion in 2016 from the record volume of $3.23 trillion in 2015. Global cross border M&A was down 10 per cent to $1.29 trillion compared with $1.43 trillion in 2015.
Number of transactions for all top 10 targeted nations globally fell year-on-year.
The UK witnessed the biggest decline with a 51 per cent drop to $212.3 billion, its lowest M&A volume since 2013, followed by China and the US, down 31 per cent and 22 per cent respectively, Dealogic said.
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