Finance Monthly Deal Maker Awards 2016 Edition

MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS This year did not quite trump 2015 when it comes to mergers and acquisitions, but did see its fair share of notable big-name deals. We’ve seen Microsoft’s $26 billion marriage to LinkedIn, in what has been one of the most surprising and biggest tech deals of the year, but this was topped by the no.1 deal in the pharma industry, with the $66 billion buyout of Monsanto, by Bayer, creating the largest genetically modified seeds producer in the world. On the sidelines of 2016 sits also what Russian President Putin describes as the ‘biggest privatization deal of 2016’: the sale of 19.5% of Russian state subsidiary Rosneft to the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and commodities trader Glencore International. According to Ernst & Young’s latest research, executives have remained bullish right up until the end of the year, leaving an upward perspective for M&A in 2017, and a confidence that sustainability will persist on the back of 2015’s records. EY also reports that deals planned for 2017 involve a larger variety of smaller acquisitions, with more complex and smarter executions to impact the frequency of completions.