The 2022 global M&A market limped to the year’s finish line, with mega deals seeing their lowest deal count since 2017 and their lowest deal volume since 2020.
After reaching an annual deal count of 46 in boom-year 2021—which was one of the highest annual counts of mega deals on record, according to Bloomberg data—a total of 34 M&A mega deals, valued at $10 billion or greater, were announced in 2022.
Of 2022’s 34 mega deals, 27 were controlling-stake transactions, four were spinoffs, two were transactions for a minority or additional stake, and one was a joint venture deal. Last year’s controlling-stake mega deal count was also the lowest count since 2017 and below the 10-year average count of 32 transactions for that subset of deals.
Aggregate annual mega deal volume dropped from $840 billion in 2021 to $749 billion in 2022. However, the average mega deal size in 2022 was $22 billion, higher than the average mega deal sizes seen in 2020 ($19 billion) and 2021 ($18 billion).
Six controlling-stake M&A mega deals were announced in Q4 2022 for a total value of $110 billion. Among these were the $25 billion acquisition of Albertsons Companies Inc. by The Kroger Co. and the $27 billion acquisition of Horizon Therapeutics plc by Amgen Inc. To date, no mega deals have been signed in 2023 thus far.
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