Finance

There is really only one area of investment banking you want to be in right now

Investment bankers working on mergers and acquisitions had an incredible 2015.

There was a record high of $5.05 trillion of M&A activity over the year. There were a record 69 $10 billion plus deals, and ten $50 billion plus transactions, also a record high.

Revenues from these transactions, meanwhile, hit the second-highest level on record, at $23.5 billion. The only year higher was 2007.

That was in a year where overall global investment banking revenue was down 8% from the year before, according to Dealogic.

Here are some of the records:

  • In the US, targeted M&A volume reached a new record high (up 59% year-on-year), while Asia Pacific targeted M&A broke the $1 trillion mark, a record high.
  • By sector, healthcare M&A was up 66% from the prior year, hitting a new full-year record of $724.4 billion. Tech M&A hit a record high in terms of volume and activity.
  • There was also record spin-off volume and near-record highs on global cross-border M&A.
  • Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch all reached record highs in terms of annual advisory volumes.

If that doesn’t give you a sense of the kind of record-breaking year it was, one chart in Dealogic’s full-year M&A review might.

It lists the top 10 announced deals of the year, and under “deal characteristics,” it shows that every single deal broke, or nearly broke, a record.

That includes Anheuser-Busch InBev’s deal for SABMiller, the biggest food and beverage deal on record and the Dow-DuPont deal, the biggest chemicals deal on record.

Have a look:

Screen Shot 2016 01 05 at 9.02.46 AMDealogic

NOW WATCH: Martin Shkreli may have hung up on an FBI agent live on video hours before his arrest

Please enable Javascript to watch this video
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Most Popular

To Top