Dealmaking was just so-so last year in much of the world, even as it was a time for megadeals in the United States. The volume of global mergers and acquisitions was down 6 percent, to $2.4 trillion, the slowest year for M&A since 2009, according to Thomson Reuters. But M&A work in the United States saw a sizable uptick, and deals with U.S. targets were a particular bright spot, posting a gain of 11.3 percent, to $1.04 trillion.
In fact, 10 of the 15 largest announced transactions worldwide featured U.S. targets. One clear outlier made a material impact on the year’s totals: Verizon Communications Inc.’s $130 billion deal to acquire the 45 percent stake in its Verizon Wireless unit held by British mobile phone giant Vodafone Group Plc. Only America Online Inc.’s disastrous $181.6 billion acquisition of Time Warner Inc. in 2000 and Vodafone’s own $203 billion acquisition of German telecommunications company Mannesmann AG in 1999 have been larger, Thomson Reuters says. (Thomson Reuters counted the Verizon Wireless deal as a U.S.–U.S. transaction because both Verizon Communications and Verizon Wireless are U.S. companies, even though the seller of the stake is British. Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz advised Verizon on the deal, while Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Slaughter and May counseled Vodafone.)
