Strategic M&A Boomlet Ahead?

I’ve been playing around with the idea that we could soon see a boomlet in corporate M&A, thanks to the credit crunch. My tentative thesis is that companies have been hesitant to make certain acquisition inquiries, for fear of being topped by private equity firms that have much cheaper costs of capital. But with that cut-rate capital now on the sidelines, it’s a much fairer playing field.

This is certainly not a perfect notion – particularly for tech companies that borrowed heavily over the past year – but is still worth considering. Thoughts?

BTW: Thomson Financial published some data on corporate M&A, just prior to the credit crunch. Since July 23, however, less than 10% of announced M&A dollar volume has come from private equity sponsors. In fact, there hasn’t been a $1 billion+ private equity deal announced yet this month. The last time that happened was January 2004…