FINspeak: And the US M&A Winner is.... Healthcare

Thomson Reuters just published their Q2 M&A report which also covered first half 2009 M&A transaction value and volume. As noted in previous entries for this blog, Healthcare was noted as the sector to watch for new activity and would the first to recover from the down economy. According to the first half numbers, it has not disappointed by accounting for approximately $130B in deal flow from 321 deals. It was the only sector to outperform the previous year and did so with a 60% increase. This could be viewed as a flight to quality or simply taking advantage of what the market is giving you.

Financials can in second with $38B in value on 611 deals. This half of the deal value from the previous year and surely reflects the significant decline in financial assets, not a simple desire for smaller acquisitions. This number is even more startling when you consider that the Barclays Global Investor acquisition accounted for $13B of that number which means the other 610 deals were considerably smaller. The other stories of interest where the dramatic YOY decline for Consumer Goods (approximately an 80% drop in deal value) due to decreased consumer spending and Technology having the largest number of deals (657) with a low total value of $19B, You can check it out the report for yourself at the below link:

(http://www.pehub.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads//2q09-ma-financial-advisory-review.pdf)