M&A deals slowest in years

Mergermarket has released its Canadian M&A trend report for the first half of 2013 (H1). The report’s key findings include:

Overall M&A activity in Canada (US$ 31.7bn, 245 deals) was down 40.2% by deal value compared to H1 2012 (US$ 53bn). H1 2013 was the slowest first half since H1 2005 (US$ 28.1bn)
Q2 2013 saw a second consecutive quarterly decline, dropping 7.3% from US$ 16.4bn in Q1 to US$ 15.2bn – these were two of the lowest quarters since Q2 2012 which was also under US$ 20bn (US$ 17.4bn)

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Mid-market M&A (US$10 – 250m) performance was valued at US$ 7.6bn for 98 deals. Mid-market deal value increased 22.2% to the comparable period last year (US$ 6.2bn). Meanwhile, larger transactions (over US$ 250m) dropped considerably from US$ 46.7bn in H1 2012 to US$ 23.9bn in H1 2013
Outbound M&A has seen higher values than inbound for the last three quarters: Q2 ended with 41 deals valued at US$ 15.9bn – the highest quarterly tally since Q2 2012 (US$ 22.6bn) and up 57.4% from Q1’s US$ 10.1bn
Domestic activity in Canada improved slightly from Q1’s US$ 9.3bn to US$ 10.1bn, up 8.6% but H1 concluded with a 14.8% decline from H1 2012 (US$ 22.9bn)
Inbound M&A activity continued its downward slide with deals valued at US$ 5.1bn in Q2, down 28.2% on Q1 (US$ 7.1bn) and the second consecutive quarterly decline. Q2 also resulted in the lowest value since Q1 2010 (US$ 3.6bn)

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