There's fist time for everything ...
<<NEW YORK, June 30 (Reuters) - The strongest currents propelling world commerce, including new technologies, robust equities markets and globalization, converged in the first six months of 1998 to drive the biggest merger wave in history.
For the first six months of 1998, there were a record $945.5 billion in U.S. deals, based on preliminary figures, topping the $920 billion in mergers for all of 1997, according to Securities Data Co.
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''It is breathtaking. It is clear that the first six months will be more than 1997 in total. That obviously is skewed by some of these big deals, but that is phenomenal. It is a classic struggle between scope and scale versus focus, and scale obviously prevailing in the marketplace today,'' said Robert Profusek, head of the M&A law practice at Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue in New York.
Meredith Brown, head of the M&A group at Debevoise & Plimpton, a New York law firm, said, ''It is hard to get investment bankers to focus on a mere $1 billion transaction. That used to be a big deal.''
As for high stock prices, the currency of choice for mergers and acquisitions, Brown said stock has climbed to 90 percent of deal consideration, ''an amazing reversal of where things were 10 years ago when the majority of the aggregate consideration would have been cash.''>> |
