DealLawyers.com Blog

Mergermarket recently issued its Global and Regional M&A Report for the 1st quarter of 2017.  Here’s an excerpt with some of the highlights:

– Global dealmaking so far has remained resilient in the face of an uncertain year, with 3,554 deals worth US$ 678.5bn announced in the first quarter representing an 8.9% increase in value compared to the same period last year (4,326 deals, US$ 622.9bn). Due to ongoing uncertainty regarding upcoming European elections, transactions will be viewed as more precious, with larger sums being invested in fewer deals. This is reflected in the average size of disclosed value deals (US$ 403.4m), which reached its highest Q1 level on Mergermarket record (since 2001) due to nine recorded mega-deals (>US$ 10bn), up from eight in Q1 2016.

– A stand out trend has been the number of Consumer mega-deals announced, with a record three deals valued over US$ 10bn resulting in the sector deal value (395 deals, US$ 136.1bn) reaching its highest valued Q1 since 2008 (497 deals, US$ 180.2bn).

– A reversal of fortunes was seen for Chinese dealmakers investing abroad, who after a record-breaking 2016 have had their ambitions thwarted by strict regulation imposed on transactions valued over US$ 2bn. Chinese dealmakers invested in 75 deals worth US$ 11.8bn outside their borders in the first quarter, dropping 85.6% in value compared to Q1 2016 (96 deals, US$ 82bn) and 72.1% compared to Q4 (87 deals, US$ 42.3bn) to reach its lowest quarterly value since Q3 2014 (US$ 9.0bn) and deal count since Q1 2015 (61).

– Political uncertainty in Europe appears to have affected activity from international dealmakers pursuing deals in the region. Largely as a result in the previously mentioned drop in Chinese activity, Q1 inbound M&A (262 deals, US$ 71.7bn) dropped 39.0% by value compared to Q1 2016 (315 deals, US$ 117.5bn), marking the lowest Q1 since 2014 (US$ 55.8bn).

The report also includes the legal advisor league tables for the 1st quarter.

– John Jenkins