M&A In 2010

As a quick follow up to my post of February 8th, 2010 entitled "2009 vs 2010: Developments In The M&A Market", I wanted to touch on how M&A actually played out in 2010. As you can see from the recently released Dealogic League Table below, both Goldman and Morgan Stanley came in 1st and 2nd (or vice versa, depending on how it is counted), as I initially predicted. In addition, the dealers that received very large amounts of TARP (Citi and BoA / Merrill in particular) slid in the rankings. Their loss came at the gain of large international dealers such as UBS and Credit Suisse. Moreover, other international dealers such as Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, Nomura, and HSBC all moved up in the rankings at the expense of smaller US-focused boutique firms. Part of this has to do with a trend that I did not foresee, which was the massive expansion in M&A activities in emerging markets - specifically Asia. Earlier in the year, there were numerous reports of various firms racing to open up shop in Shanghai and other financial hubs in the East.


From a global perspective, it looks like there was $2.25 trillion worth of deals done in 2010, up for the first time since 2007. With liquidity taps opening and credit markets easing, corporate acquirers were clearly on the hunt in 2010, which is basically in line with what I expected. It is a trend that I expect will continue in 2011. On sector basis, O&G and telecom did quite well, as expected.

I'll be back shortly to expand further on my expectations of M&A in 2011.