Global deal-making in 2022 will continue to be as fiery as it was in 2021. The year 2021 remained a record-breaking year for Mergers and Acquisition (MA) deals as there was easy availability of cheap financing combined with a thriving stock market, despite the fear of covid-19 remained relevant throughout the year.
Global MA volumes crossed $5 trillion for the first time, conveniently overshadowing the previous record of $4.55tn set in 2007, as per the data collected by Dealogic. The overall value of mergers and acquisition deals aggregated to $5.8tn in 2021, a 64% increase from 2020, according to Refinitiv.

Flush with cash and emboldened by soaring stock market valuations, large buyout funds, corporates and financiers inked 62,193 deals in 2021, a 24 per cent surge from the year-ago period, as records kept breaking in each month of the year.

Mergers Acquisitions ( MA) Outlook 2022:
Investment bankers said they are expecting the deal-making frenzy to continue next year as well, even though the looming interest rate increases.

Higher interest rates weigh on borrowing costs that can cause a decline in the pace of MA activity. Despite this fact, Deal advisers see a flurry of large business mergers in 2022.

According to a survey of deal makers and advisers by Grant Thornton, more than two-thirds of the participants believed that regulatory and pandemic induced challenges can not hinder the growth of deal volumes in 2022.

US-MA Volumes 2021
Accommodative monetary policies of the US Federal Reserve incited the stock market rally and provided executives with access to low-cost financing, which in turn, gave them the confidence to go after their large targets.

The US topped the MA in 2021, accounting for nearly half of global volumes. Even with the tougher anti-trust environment under the Biden administration, the value of mergers and acquisitions nearly doubled to $2.5tn in 2021.

The largest mergers and Acquisitions In the USA in 2021 were: ATT’s

ATT Inc. $T: $24.60(-0.73%)
media division merger Discovery for $43 billion; the $34bn leveraged buyouts of Medline Industries; the $31bn Canadian Pacific Railway-Kansas City Southern merger; and the Johnson Johnson

Johnson Johnson $JNJ: $171.07(-0.72%) and General Electric
General Electric Company $GE: $94.47(-0.24%) spin-off.
Deals in sectors, namely, technology, financials, industrials, and energy and powers, contributed the most to the total MA Volume. Buy-outs backed by private-equity firms grew two-folds this year, surpassing the $1tn mark for the first time, according to Refinitiv data.

Despite the slackening MA activity in the second half of the year, dealmaking by Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPAC) added an extra boost to the MA volumes in 2021. Spac deals reflected 10% of total MA volumes and contributed several billion dollars to the total.