Our M&A lawyers are among the most experienced and effective in the world. We represent many of the world's largest publicly traded and privately held companies, as well as leading private equity firms on their most important mergers, acquisitions and takeover transactions.
M&A at a Glance (March 2016)
March 15, 2016 download PDF
Following a contraction in December and January, broader M&A
activity showed signs of recovery in February 2016. While the
overall number of announced deals was down, volume and average deal
values generally increased. In the U.S., number of deals decreased
by 2.5% to 831, average deal size increased by 10.7% to $293.0
million and overall deal volume increased by 23.7% to $100.50
billion. Globally, number of deals decreased by 9.7% to
2,890, average deal size increased by 75% to $213.5 million and
overall deal volume increased by 60.8% to $310.25
billion.
February's gains were aided by a sharp increase in sponsor-related
activity, with the U.S. volume for such deals increasing by 99.6%
to $33.82 billion and global volume for such deals increasing by
91.5% to $64.47 billion. In contrast, U.S. strategic activity
only marginally increased by 3.7% to $66.68 billion although global
volume increased by a solid 54.3% to $245.77 billion. Figure
1.
Crossborder activity followed a similar trend of increasing in
terms of dollar value while moderately decreasing in terms of
number of deals. Inbound U.S. crossborder volume increased by
30.8% to $28.65 billion (with number of deals decreasing by 7.8% to
130); outbound U.S. crossborder volume increased by 98.0% to $23.88
billion (with the number of deals decreasing by 10.3% to 131); and
global crossborder volume rose by 149.4% to $158.50 billion (with
number of deals decreasing by 8.8% to 728). Figure 1.
Canada regained its top position for both number of deals and
volume of inbound U.S. crossborder transactions in February 2016
with 30 transactions and $15.26 billion in volume. Sweden
took the lead for outbound U.S. crossborder in terms of volume with
$9.92 billion, while Canada maintained its lead in terms of number
of deals (25). Figure 3.
Utility & Energy claimed the top spot in the U.S. active
target industries list with $20.81 billion in volume in February
2016, followed by Computers & Electronics at $20.47
billion. Figure 2.
Turning to the U.S. public merger market, the average value of
announced deals declined for a second month in a row (the first
time this has happened since August 2015). Figure 6. We
also note that the largest five such deals announced in February
were valued at an average of $5.76 billion, which is only 10.5% of
the largest five deals announced in the last 12 months ($54.9
billion). Figure 5. As a possible reflection of this
decline in average deal size, reverse break fees also declined
somewhat in February, from the 12-month average of 5.4% to
4.8%. The use of tender offers in U.S public mergers
continued to decline in February 2016, with no tender offers being
reported for the second consecutive month (the first time this has
occurred since the inception of this publication in April
2012). Figure 11. In addition, no hostile offers were
reported in February. Figure 12. Finally, the use of
cash-only consideration increased to 78.6% in February 2016,
substantially higher than the January 2016 figure (12.5%) and the
average for the last 12 months (53.4%). Figure 9.
Click here to watch the Video Summary: M&A at a Glance (March 2016)