Global Volumes of Mergers and Acquisitions reach $3 Trillion

Author: Anurag Bhullar

Financial turmoil has whacked out several business entities and economies around the world. But it has given an ultimate push to the volume of global mergers and acquisitions across the world which has reached the gigantic $3 trillion mark for this year. Despite suchhigh volumes of $3 trillion level, it is still 22 percent well below what it had been for the same period in the last year.

With reference to the data collected by Dealogic, the volumes of M&A activities has dropped significantly in all the regions except Latin America, over the last one year

The recently announced deal of $44.4 billion acquisition of Merrill Lynch by the US Banking major Bank of America has helped the Global M&A volume to reach this milestone.

Other significant M&A activities so far this year include the Lloyds TSB Group acquisition of HBOS in a deal of $29.3 billion and the acquisition of Wachovia by Wells Fargo at a price of $15.1 billion.

Financial sector is considered to be the most targeted industry with regard to M&A perspective. So far this year, the M&A volume in the financial sector has dropped to $538.3 billion mark from $582.2 billion for the same period in 2007. But it is still the most preferable industry for M&A activities and its year to date volume is still the second largest on record.