Singapore steps up overseas acquisition spree as offshore deals hit US$91b YTD

This comes from US$41.9b in M&As recorded in the previous year.

Bloomberg reports that overseas deals by companies in Singapore more than doubled to US$91b in the first nine months of 2018 from US$41.9b in the previous year as the city state makes another case for punching above its weight. 

Also read: Singapore ate up 60% of SEA M&A activity in 2017

Temasek and GIC remain some of the largest players in the M&A scene, data from Bloomberg show, although ST Engg, CapitaLand and SPH have been stepping up their overseas acquisitions as they try to achieve scale beyond the Lion City’s inherently small market.

Also read: GIC is Europe's top overseas private equity investor in Q2

Singapore firms were involved in 468 transactions as buyer of foreign companies in the nine months through September, according to Bloomberg, representing a year-on-year increase of 7.8% and outpacing the growth of global M&A activity which inched up by 2% over the same period.

In terms of takeover target, Singapore companies are steadily zeroing in on China as homegrown firms have been involved in 68 acquisitions of Chinese companies so far this year with the volume of transactions climbing from US$3.8b the same period of 2017 to US$19.5. 

M&A activity targeting the Materials sector hit US$5.8b in September, according to an earlier report by Thomson Reuters, followed by High Technology and Media & Entertainment with 9.9% and 9.0% market share respectively.

“This was driven by Singaporean state-owned Temasek Holdings (Pte) Ltd’s pending agreement to raise its stake to 4%, in Bayer AG, a German-based manufacturer of organic chemicals, worth US$3.7b, in a privately negotiated transaction. The deal is currently the biggest transaction involving Singapore so far this year,” Thomson Reuters added.

JPMorgan accounts for the lion’s share of the advisory table for outbound Singapore M&A after accounting for US$49.8b of deals followed by Citigroup at US$34.2b and Morgan Stanley at US$31b.

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