The Month That Was

We’ve reached the end of February, which means that Daddy Thomson has sent over some new data on the M&A and capital markets. What follows are a few trends, with downloadable charts posted after the jump:

Minority Stake Acquisitions Increase
Minority stake acquisitions have increased in 2008, narrowing the gap between majority and minority stake acquisitions. This trend is largely due to the decrease in buyouts activity, which contributed to higher majority stake purchase volume in 2006 and 2007. In February, minority stake volume accounted for 86.8% of total monthly M&A volume compared to 29% during February 2007.
 
Domestic M&A Exceeds Cross-Border M&A
Global domestic M&A volume surpassed cross-border M&A volume in February. From September 2007 through November 2007, cross-border M&A volume exceeded domestic M&A volume; the biggest monthly gap occurred in November when cross-border M&A volume accounted for 67.4% of total global M&A volume.
 
High Tech Sector Leads 
Driven by Microsoft’s $41.1 billion bid for Yahoo!, announced High Technology deals accounted for 17.2% of January and February total M&A volume in 2008. There were 754 High Technology deals in the first two months of 2008, the largest number of deals in any sector.
 
More Withdrawn IPOs than Completed IPOs
There were a total of 19 initial public offerings estimated to generate $6.7 billion in proceeds withdrawn from the Global markets in February. This brings the number of withdrawn IPOs to 61 for the year so far totaling $21.4bn. By comparison only $5.2 billion of issuance came to market in February and the total for the year so far stands at $13.3bn. Indian issuers DFL Office Trust and Emaar-MGF Land postponed their IPOs valued at $2 billion an $1.6 billion, respectively.
 
IPO Issuance Led by Asia
China Railway Construction’s IPO, valued at $3.1 billion, contributed substantially to Asia’s IPO volume, which accounted for 80% of global IPO volume year-to-date. Regionally, Asia saw a 30.7% increase in IPO issuance from the same period last year.
 
Monthly Global Debt Plunges
In February, global debt volume totaled $230.1 billion from 543 issues, barely half of January volume, and the lowest level since August of 2002. Regionally, volumes decreased 49.2%, 46.3%, and 26.8% in Europe, the Americas, and Asia, respectively, from the year ago period.

M&A Download: M&A Snapshot.pdf
Capital Markets Download: capmarkets.pdf