Dealer’s choice

3 January 2018 By John Foley Follow @johnsfoley

The $3.6 trln of mergers announced in 2017, including huge deals from Disney and Broadcom, sets up some chunky targets for cost cuts. That means job losses, even if buyers say not. Yet given the political climate, shareholders can’t count on the extra profit being theirs to keep.

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Worldwide mergers and acquisitions hit $3.6 trillion in 2017, virtually unchanged from the previous year, and the number of deals was the highest since records began in 1980, according to Thomson Reuters data.

The largest announced acquisitions were Broadcom's offer for rival chipmaker Qualcomm, at around $130 billion, health insurer Aetna's bid for CVS Health, at $77 billion, and Walt Disney's purchase of parts of Twenty-First Century Fox, at $66.1 billion.

Although the aggregate value of acquisitions in Europe increased by 17 percent year-on-year, those in the United States fell 16 percent. Cross-border activity fell by one-tenth. The number of U.S. deals increased by 14 percent.

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