Mergers, deal values down

After two years of history making deal activity and soaring deal values, the U.S. M&A market appears headed for an across-the-board slowdown in performance this year, according to a press release from Mergerstat.

Through the first six months of 2001, Mergerstat reports that deal makers announced 4,293 U.S. and U.S. cross-border transactions, down from 5,259 such transactions in the first six months of 2000.

If the trend holds until the end of the year, it will be the first decline in year-over-year deal activity for the M&A market since 1991 and the lowest number of total announcements since 1998.

To date, Mergerstat reports that U.S. deal makers have disclosed just $336.6 billion of deal value compared to $676.5 billion for the first half of 2000. Much of that slump in deal value has stemmed from a slowdown in the number of U.S. and U.S. cross-border mega-deal announcements (or announcements of transactions with price tags of $1 billion or more).

Mergerstat notes that U.S. deal makers recorded just 66 mega-deal announcements worth $217.2 billion in the first six months of 2001, versus 107 mega-deal announcements worth $474 billion during the same period in 2000.