Earlier this month,
we reported on the slow-down of M&A activity in the first
quarter of 2016. Despite this challenging start to the year, a new
report from Deloitte & Touche LLP entitled "M&A Trends Report 2016" found that
executives remain optimistic about M&A activity going forward.
The report provides that 87 percent of the 2,300 U.S. survey
respondents said that they expected their deal activity to match or
exceed 2015, which was the busiest year ever for mergers and
acquisitions.
Respondents in Deloitte & Touche LLP's survey expected
that technology would be the top industry for M&A activity
through the rest of 2016, with 26 percent of corporate respondents
and 25 percent of private equity investors rating it the most
likely sector to see a growth in M&A activity. The authors of
the report opined that this may be due to the convergence of
technology with traditionally analogs sectors, an evolution that
would open a number of new opportunities for deal-making.
