A 153% growth in value in M&A in the eurozone in eleven months of 1999 has been pointed out by the European Central Bank.
‘Euro area companies involved in merger and acquisition activities and operations such as leveraged buy-outs have financed these deals to a large extent with large euro-denominated debt securities issues,’ the ECB said.
‘These issues often served to repay bridge facilities (mainly syndicated loans). This led to some very large issues, unprecedented in the history of European capital markets. In general, merger and acquisition activity by euro area companies grew strongly in 1999, both for the banking and non-banking industry.’
‘According to private data providers, in the case of the non-banking industry merger and acquisition transactions involving companies located in the euro area as parent or target increased in terms of value by 153% in 1999 (as of 23 November) compared with 1998 as a whole. For the banking industry, the corresponding figure was 35%.
‘The euro area surpassed the United States in the course of 1999 in terms of the nominal value of deals. This was in strong contrast with 1998 where the value of completed deals among banks was less than half that of the United States.
‘Similarly, while in the non-bank sector, the value of deals in the euro area in 1998 was around one-quarter of the US figure, in 1999 this proportion rose to around one-half.’ |
