ZEW-ZEPHYR M&A Index Germany - M&A Market Is Picking up Pace Again

An upward trend in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) with German participation has recently begun to take shape. In the meantime, this trend has become consolidated: M&A activities have notably picked up pace. The ZEW-ZEPHYR M&A Index has increased accordingly. These are the findings of calculations by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) based on the Zephyr database of Bureau van Dijk (BvD).

In August 2013, the ZEW-ZEPHYR M&A Index Germany was at a rather low level of 50 points. Within just one year, until August 2014, the index increased by about 75 per cent to the total of 87.5 points. Even though several of the previous months were characterised by a large number of mergers and acquisitions, these outliers were barely reflected in the twelve-month moving average of the ZEW-ZEPHYR M&A Index. That has changed now.

The twelve-month average of the ZEW-ZEPHYR M&A Index is growing continuously. In August 2014, the value climbed to 84 points, which corresponds to a year-on-year increase of 17 per cent. Compared with August 2012, the twelve-month average even increased by 26 per cent,  the highest value since August 2010 (85 points).

In addition to the growth of M&A activity in numbers, the average transaction volume per M&A deal is rising as well. The average transaction volume over the past twelve months (September 2013 to August 2014) was 361 million USD per deal. This value was last exceeded in February 2010 with an average transaction volume of 386 million USD per deal.

The upward trend in M&A business as well as the recent increase in M&A intensity might indicate an accelerating merger wave. This hypothesis is supported by the exceptionally large number of rumours and announcements in the M&A market in the past few months. In Germany, the last merger wave was observed between mid-2005 and mid-2011. It peaked in 2008 and then increasingly flagged due to the outbreak of the financial crisis. In April 2011, M&A activities bottomed out.

The ZEW-ZEPHYR M&A Index measures the number of M&A transactions completed in Germany each month. It considers only mergers and acquisitions by and with German companies. It does not differentiate between the country of origin of the buyer or partner. This means that both domestic as well as international buyer companies are considered, provided the target companies are active in Germany.

The ZEW-ZEPHYR M&A Index Germany is created by ZEW and BvD on the basis of the ZEPHYR data base. The Zephyr database, which is updated daily, contains detailed information on over one million M&A, IPO, and private equity transactions across the world.

For more information please contact

Sven Heim, Phone +49/621/1235-183, E-mail heim@zew.de