Telecoms, media and technology (TMT) deals increased in value by 6% over the first three quarters of last year, according to the global M&A review from GlobalData.
Advisers Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and Citi led the league table, said the research firm, with Goldman advising seven TMT deals worth a total of US$143.5 billion.
TMT deals were worth $666 billion in the first three quarters of 2020, according to the survey, up on last year. Healthcare deals were worth $310 billion, up 296% on the first nine months of 2019.
Every other sector went down in terms of value of mergers and acquisitions (M&As), by amounts varying from 2% for insurance to 89% for aerospace, defence and security.
Regionally, North America and the Middle East and Africa were both down year-on-year. Asia-Pacific deals went up 127% in value; Europe was up 46%; and south and central America was up 25%.
TMT was the biggest sector in both value of deals and the volume, with GlobalData recording 6,608 in the first nine months, compared with 6,085 in the same period of last year.
The four biggest announced deals in TMT were NTT’s $407 billion acquisition of NTT DoCoMo; Nvidia’s $40.0 billion acquisition of Arm, from SoftBank; Analog Devices’ $20.4 billion purchase of Maxim; and Virgin Media’s $18.8 billion merger with Telefónica’s O2 UK.
In the first nine months of 2019 TMT deals were worth $629 billion, with a further $183 billion being announced in the final quarter. If 2020 matches that level for October-December, M&A deals will be worth a total of $849 billion.
According to GlobalData, deal types include mergers, acquisitions, asset transactions, private equity buyouts which were announced between 1 January and 30 September.
