Mergers and acquisitions have been non-stop this year, with lots of deals
done, and some doozies that were unable to cross the finish line. Here we look
at what's happened in the first half of the year; we will round out the entire
year's activity in another report early next year.
The top 10 deals in the first
half of 2014 totaled nearly $90 billion in value, with Actavis' $25 billion
deal for Forest topping the list. According to EvaluatePharma's
estimates, the deals worth about $50 billion surfaced in
just the second quarter, making it the biggest quarter since at least 2007 if
megamergers are factored out.
Much of that action was driven
by tax inversions, U.S. companies using a process to buy European companies to
lower their tax rates without having to move their offices. That was usually
not the only factor. Some companies diversified portfolios, or pipelines, but
avoiding taxes was the back story for much of the action, at least until the
U.S. Treasury Department took steps to curb it.
And it was the deal that
didn't get done that may have had the biggest influence on the government
finally clamping down. That was Pfizer's protracted and unsuccessful run at
AstraZeneca, which Pfizer saw as a way both to bring some much-needed firepower
to its pipeline and to lower its tax bill with a U.K. domicile.