The pace of worldwide mergers & acquisitions fell to just $11.1 billion through Thursday of this week, marking the slowest week for deal making this year and brings the year to-date total of worldwide M&A to $750.2 billion, a decline of 7% compared to last year at this time. Telecommunications, media & entertainment and consumer staples lead the sectors with strongest year-over-year percentage gains, while materials, energy and power and financials have all registered double-digit declines compared to year-to-date 2012.

Bolstered by this week’s multi-billion dollar offerings from Brazil’s Petrobras ($10.9 billion), US-based Merck Inc ($6.5 billion) and Indonesia’s Pertamina PT ($3.25 billion), the level of US-dollar denominated investment grade corporate debt totals $447.9 billion for year-to-date 2013, a 15% increase compared to the year ago period and the strongest year-todate period for US-dollar denominated investment grade corporate debt since records began in 1980. JP Morgan leads the year-to-date ranking for US-dollar investment grade underwriting with 15.3% share, up 1.7 share points from last year at this time.

Initial public offerings from China’s Sinopec Engineering Group and China Galaxy Securities Co each raised over $1 billion on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange pushing the volume of Asia Pacific IPOs to $9.9 billion for year-to-date 2013, a 15% decline compared to last year at this time. The two offerings rank as the largest Chinese IPOs this year, but fall behind Thailand’s BTS Rail Mass Transit Growth ($2.13 billion) and Singapore’s Mapletree Greater China ($2.06 billion).

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In a move that could thwart Japan’s SoftBank Corp’s bid for Sprint, Dish Network offered $25.5 billion in cash and stock. Here’s a look at how the proposed bid compares with top telecom deals so far this year, and how they stack up against the top telecom deals of all time.

The pace of worldwide energy & power deal making has slowed to the lowest levels since year-to-date 2005, with $85.3 billion in announced deals this year, an 11% decline from last year at this time. This week’s $3.3 billion acquisition of Lufkin Industries Inc by GE pushes the volume of oil & gas merger activity to $60.1 billion, or 70% of overall energy & power deal making so far this year. Energy & power M&A accounts for a market-leading 14.5% of total worldwide M&A this year, down from 17.7% last year at this time. There have been no energy & power deals greater than $5 billion announced this year, the first time since year-to-date 2004. (more…)

Bolstered by a 63% increase in deals valued over US$5 billion, the value of worldwide M&A totalled US$542.8 billion during the first quarter of 2013, a 10% increase from comparable 2012 levels. Worldwide deals valued over US$5 billion totalled US$167.8 billion during the first quarter, accounting for 31% of announced deal activity in the quarter compared to 21% during the first quarter of 2012. Just over 8,100 worldwide deals were announced during the first quarter of 2013, a 16% decline from a year ago and the slowest quarter for M&A, by number of deals, since the third quarter of 2004.

Cross Border M&A activity totalled US$134 billion during the first quarter of 2013, accounting for 25% of overall M&A volume and down 24% compared to first quarter 2012. Accounting for nearly one-quarter of worldwide announced merger activity, M&A involving companies located in the emerging markets totalled US$128.9 billion during first quarter 2013, a 6% decrease from 2012. (more…)

Don’t you wish you had a crystal ball to gaze into the future of M&A, IPOs and bond activity? Well, global mergers and acquisitions started off 2013 with a burst of activity in technology, consumer staples and real estate – potentially signaling the next M&A cycle. At the same time, corporate bond activity continues to push higher, along with a resurgence of common stock offerings. Could a surging IPO market be far behind? And will private equity firms begin to put more capital to work?

For an insightful exploration of these questions, join some of today’s foremost financial commentators for a complimentary webcast on April 16th: Examining Q1 Trends in Worldwide Deal Making, including: (more…)

Here’s a quick check-in with our friends over at the Legal Solutions blog to see what’s been going on in the legal world this past week: (more…)

The amount of money invested by PE firms in health and medical services (which include urgent care) rose to almost $4 billion in 2012. Today’s graphic charts the number of deals, the equity invested in health & medical services and the share of healthcare PE deals.

The weekly pace of worldwide mergers and acquisitions fell to the lowest levels this year with just $7.8 billion in announced M&A activity during the week of March 10th, compared to a weekly average of $37.2 billion so far during 2013. Through Thursday, not one M&A deal over $1 billion had been announced worldwide for the first time since the week of September 30, 2001. For year-todate 2013, worldwide M&A activity reached $400.4 billion, a 6% increase compared to last year at this time. (more…)

Bullish options bets surged on target companies ahead of top M&A deals in 2012. Today’s graphic shows the top 20 target companies with the highest Buy-to-Open (BTO) calls ratios.

Worldwide M&A activity totaled $352 billion during the first two months of this year, an 11% increase compared to the first two months of 2012 and the strongest start for global deal making in two years. February M&A activity totaled $219.3 billion, up 65% from January, bolstered by deals for Heinz, Virgin Media, Dell and NBC Universal.

This week marks the strongest start for M&A in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector since 2009 when Pfizer acquired Wyeth for $64.5 billion in January of that year. Targets in Ireland, the United States and India accounts for 87% of announced activity so far this year. (more…)