Europe Inc has been on an acquisition tear, with luxury purveyor LVMH and drug maker Novartis AG becoming the latest companies to seek growth through splashy purchases overseas.
Buyers from the continent have announced $58bn of takeovers globally this month, more than triple the same period last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That makes it the busiest November since 2015. More than half the deal volume came from purchases of US companies, compared with 37% from western European targets, the data show.
LVMH announced on Monday it will acquire Tiffany & Co for $16.2bn, expanding its presence in jewellery with the largest luxury-goods deal ever. The transaction came just hours after Novartis said it would buy Parsippany, New Jersey-based Medicines Co for $9.7bn to get its hands on a blockbuster cholesterol drug.
Completing the European hat trick on Monday, Geneva-based ticket reseller Viagogo is buying rival StubHub from EBay Inc for $4.05bn in a play for a share of the US market.
“We are at a stage in the cycle where European corporates have strong balance sheets,” said Kyril Courboin, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co’s French business. “They increasingly use this firepower to make acquisitions in the US market.”
In a highly unstable global environment, the US also offers a single market with massive scale, a supportive economy and a pro-business environment, Courboin said. Last week, France’s Cie de Saint-Gobainagreed to buy drywall maker Continental Building Products Inc for $1.4bn including debt to boost its presence in growing regions of the US.
“Cash-rich companies are targeting global players in the US as a key market for expansion,” said Luigi de Vecchi, chairman of Citigroup Inc’s banking, capital markets and advisory business for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “We shall continue to see more cross-border flows into the US.”
Aroundtown SA reached a deal to acquire TLG Immobilien AG for €3.1bn ($3.4bn) in stock to create Germany’s biggest commercial landlord. Meanwhile, a bidding war is looming for Madrid bourse operator Bolas y Mercados Espanoles SA, after Switzerland’s SIX Group AG made a $3.1bn offer and Euronext NV said it’s in talks for its own bid. The recent flurry of activity is helping overall deal volumes on the continent recover after they fell 33% in the first half of the year to the lowest level in six years. European M&A is now down 15% from the same period a year earlier to $783bn, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
More big deals are slated to come before year-end. Irish flavourings maker Kerry Group Plc is conducting due diligence on a potential takeover of DuPont de Nemours Inc’s $25bn nutrition unit, Bloomberg News has reported. Assicurazioni Generali SpA is also preparing to make a formal bid in December for most of MetLife Inc’s European operations, people with knowledge of the matter have said.
US companies have also been active, with retail stockbroker Charles Schwab Corp saying Monday it will buy rival TD Ameritrade Holding Corpin a $26bn transaction. That helped make this the busiest “Merger Monday” in nearly six months, with at least $71bn of M&A transactions announced since Sunday. The last time it was this hectic at the start of a week was June 10, when companies announced $117bn of acquisitions led by United Technologies Corp’s purchase of Raytheon Co.
from Gulf Times https://ift.tt/2QTdhww
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