21: Mergers, Acquisitions and Corporate Control
FIGURE 21.6 VALUE OF M&A DEALS BY REGION (2010 TO 2015) (USD MILLION)
5,000,000
6,000,000
7,000,000
Americas
Europe
Asia-Pacific
Africa/Middle East/Central Asia
1,000,000
2,000,000
3,000,000
4,000,000
0
Total deal value (USD Million)
Acquirer region
Americas Europe Asia-Pacific Africa/Middle
East/Central Asia
Target region
Americas (includes North and South America)
Europe
Asia-Pacific (excludes Central Asia)
Africa/Middle East/Central Asia
Note: 1 Data for 2015 is incomplete (figures provided are up to 19th December 2015).
Source: Data to create figure sourced from SDC Platinum, Thomson Reuters, 19 December 2015.
more acquisitions than companies in the other regions. The tallest bars indicate that most M&A activity
occurs within a region; that is, companies tend to acquire other companies in the same region. Aside
from acquirors within the same region, companies from the Americas tend to be the biggest acquirors
with the exception of the African / Middle Eastern region, where European companies dominate.
Albeit on a smaller scale, the amount of cross-border M&A activity has increased in recent years. For
example, there has been an increase in European acquisitions of US companies, and of US acquisitions
of Asian companies. Overall, the total value of cross-border transactions across all three regions increased
by 14.7% from US$2.86 trillion (1998 to 2003) to US$3.28 trillion (2004 to 2009).
Though not explicitly shown in Figures 21.4 and 21.5, about one-third of the ‘within Europe’
merger activity (the green bar in the back right corner) includes mergers that take place across country
borders (such as a French acquisition of a UK company). Analogously, about 15% of ‘within Asia’ merger
activity involved companies located in different countries.
As further proof of the growing importance of international M&A, Table 21.1 lists the top 20
corporate takeovers of all time. Two of the top five involve companies based outside of the United States.
TABLE 21.1 TWENTY LARGEST CORPORATE TAKEOVERS, RANKED BY TRANSACTION VALUE
Rank (by
Deal Size)
Year Deal Size
(USD million)
Target Name Target
Nation
Target Industry Acquirer
Name
Acquirer
Nation
Acquirer Industry
1 2000 202,785 Mannesmann AG Germany Wireless Vodafone
AirTouch PLC
United Kingdom Wireless
2 2001 181,569 Time Warner Inc United States Motion Pictures / Audio
Visual
America Online
Inc
United States Internet Software &
Services
3 2005 95,444 Shell Transport &
Trading Co PLC
United
Kingdom
Oil & Gas Royal Dutch
Petroleum Co
Netherlands Oil & Gas
4 2006 89,432 BellSouth Corp United States Telecommunications
Services
AT&T Inc United States Wireless
(continued)