5 April 2006 | by: HARGREAVES David
A takeover activity boom that has produced about $6 billion of deals in the last three months could be sustained "over years", investment banker Rob Cameron says.
Cameron, of independent investment bank Cameron Partners, said yesterday that a number of factors led him to believe that the current mergers and acquisition boom could last longer than previous such waves of activity. These included increasing globalisation, the effects of "the IT revolution", the closer business links between New Zealand and Australia and the worldwide impact of private equity.
A global survey by Thomson Financial shows that for the first quarter of this year there were $US3.8b ($NZ6.3b) of mergers and acquisition deals announced involving New Zealand targets, up a whopping 187.5 per cent on the same quarter last year. There were 83 deals announced in the latest quarter compared with 64 a year ago.
The Origin Energy-Contact Energy merger was the biggest deal signalled in the period, valued at $US1.3b, followed by the Transpacific-Waste Management merger at $US579.3 million.
Australian entities accounted for three-quarters of all the deals by value. The energy and power sector, led by the Origin-Contact deal, was the most active sector, with deals worth $US2b.
Deutsche Bank was the top adviser in terms of announced deals, helping on $US1.4b of deals. Cameron Partners placed second through its work on the Origin- Contact deal.
But in terms of completed deals during the quarter, Cameron Partners finished top, having worked on such projects as advising the consortium that bought $435m of Carter Holt Harvey forests and advising independent directors of Carter Holt during the takeover offer from Rank Group. Cameron said the growth of private equity funds was a key driver of merger and acquisition activity.
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