Thirty-year high: Singapore companies’ M&A deal value surged 110.4%

Completed M&A activity up by 49.4%.

This year saw the most active M&A scene in Singapore with real estate, industrials and financials taking the biggest market shares with their announced deals.

A report by Thomson Reuters shows the value of announced mergers & acquisitions involving Singaporean companies surged 110.4% compared to the first nine months of 2013, and surpassed the annual volume in 2013 (US$41.8 billion). This is the strongest-ever first nine months period since records began in 1983.

During the third quarter of 2014, deal making activity slowed down as deal value (US$7.7 billion) and deal count (181 announced deals) declined 69.0% and 25.2%, respectively, coming from a strong first quarter (US$29.4 billion) and second quarter (US$24.7 billion) in 2014.

Completed M&A activity involving Singapore reached US$46.2 billion, up 49.4% compared to the first nine months of 2013 alongside a 3.1% increase in number of completed deals. The value of completed M&A deals in the third quarter of 2014 amounted to US$17.6 billion, a 78.1% sequential growth from the second quarter of 2014 and a 152.3% increase from the third quarter of 2013.

M&A activity involving Singapore companies targeted the Real Estate sector with at least 77 announced deals worth US$20.2 billion which exceeded the annual volume in recent years. This was driven by the announcement of at least four deals valued US$2-billion-and-above compared to none during the first nine months of 2013. The spin-off of Frasers Centrepoint Ltd by Fraser & Neave Ltd to its shareholders, valued at US$4.4 billion, is now the biggest-ever real estate deal involving Singapore on record.

Here’s more from Thomson Reuters:

The Industrials, Financials, Retail, and Materials sectors followed behind and captured 14.5%, 12.2%, 10.1% and 7.0% market share, respectively, as these sectors gained triple digit percentage increase from the comparable period in 2013.

Total cross-border deal activity soared 139.7% to US$38.0 billion compared to the first nine months of 2013. This was driven by a triple digit percentage growth in deal value for both inbound and outbound M&A activity which surged 143.0% and 138.8%, respectively, from the comparative period last year. Meanwhile, domestic M&A activity exceeded full year volumes in recent years with US$16.3 billion worth of transactions from 181 deals, witnessing a 200.7% increase in deal value and 11.7% growth in deal count.