The corporate intelligence service mergermarket has released its 2009 edition of Deal Drivers North America, an analysis of deal activity last year.
According to the report, produced in association with Merrill Datasite, North American M&A activity saw a 24.7 percent decline in volume and fell 7.6 percent in value. More than 3,000 deals were announced in 2009, with a combined value of $763.4 billion, compared with just over 4,000 deals with a value of $826.1 billion in 2008.
The deals mergermarket analyzed are valued at more than $5 million; if value was not disclosed, the turnover of the target was at least $10 million.
The most active deal sectors, as mergermarket defines them, were life sciences and health care, which accounted for nearly one-quarter of aggregate deal value, and energy, which posted almost one-fifth of aggregate deal value.
The report also includes a “Heat Chart,” which uses companies-for-sale stories written in the second half of 2009 as a barometer for deal activity this year. The South, which mergermarket defines as covering 12 states and the District of Columbia, posted the highest increase in for-sale stories. The sectors likely to be most active include technology, media and telecoms and energy, mining, oil and gas.
Legal advisers with Georgia offices, ranked from 1 to 20 by deal volume, include Jones Day (1) and DLA Piper (5).