More than $2.5 trillion in mergers were announced during the first half of the year, as fears of Silicon Valley’s growing ambitions helped drive a record run of deal-making.
As The New York Times reports, four of the 10 biggest deals were struck in part to fend off competition from the largest technology companies as the value of acquisitions announced during the first six months of the year increased 61% from the same period in 2017, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters.
That has put mergers in 2018 on pace to surpass $5 trillion, which would top 2015 as the largest yearly total on record.
Deals involving companies based in different countries nearly doubled compared with the first half of last year, and accounted for more than 40% of all announced transactions.
The increase in deal-making has played out against the backdrop of a healthier economic outlook in many parts of the world nearly a decade after the recession. In the United States, interest rates remain low, corporate earnings are ballooning thanks in part to tax cuts and stock prices remain near historic highs.
Big deals, a number of them in media and health care, have driven much of the activity. So far this year, companies have announced 36 transactions valued at $10 billion or more, according to Thomson Reuters. They combined for $950 billion in deals, or nearly 38% of all activity.
Competition from the tech sector has pushed the largest media firms to own both the content and the platforms on which it appears. So far this year, the value of the announced media deals has jumped to $323 billion, up nearly 440% from a year ago.
