Singapore

CHEAP financing, pressure on companies to consolidate, and competition from sponsors drove the value of global merger and acquisitions (M&A) in 2018, though the number of deals struck fell for the first time since 2010, deal intelligence service Mergermarket said in a report on Friday.

Globally, the value of M&A deals rose 11.5 per cent to US$3.53 trillion from a year ago, making it the third-largest year on Mergermarket record by value since 2001. Average deal size also saw its second-highest total value on record with US$384.8 million, just slightly below the US$400.3 million peak attained in 2015. This was in part due to the presence of 36 megadeals (defined as those larger than US$10 billion in value) in the year, six more than in 2017.