Summary
- 56 deals worth over $367 billion announced in Q2 2019.
- Two failed deals but three deals received higher offers.
- Spread on Spark Therapeutics increases significantly throughout the quarter.
A few weeks ago when we were working on our weekly article about mergers, I noticed that in a single week over $100 billion in U.S. mergers and acquisitions had been announced. The end of the second quarter of 2019 ended equally strong with 12 new deals announced worth over $85 billion thanks to the mega merger of Allergan (AGN) with AbbVie (ABBV). This made me wonder if this was an unusually strong quarter for deal making or just par for the course with a couple of strong weeks. Trying to answer that question led to the creation of this article and we plan to start reporting on the state of US mergers and acquisitions once a quarter.
We decided to mine our database of deals to look at both the number of new deals announced in Q2 2019 and the aggregate size of those deals to see how they compared with the same period last year (Q2 2019) and the prior quarter (Q1 2019). Here are some highlights from our analysis in an infographic our analyst put together. Since this is the first infographic we have put together, you will have to forgive us for any glaring infographic faux pas.
Q2 2019 U.S. M&A Highlights (Source: InsideArbitrage.com database)
With worries about further interest rate increases replaced by expectations of interest rate cuts by the fed and corporate coffers flush with cash after the big corporate rate tax cut, it makes sense that both private equity firms and corporations have stepped up their deal making.
