Source: Financial Times, 2nd January 2012

Down, but not out. Although the $2.7tn of mergers and acquisitions for the year up to mid-December was higher than for 2010 as a whole, it was a worse year than dealmakers expected. The total value of deals was almost 40 per cent below 2007's peak, Dealogic data show. Resource sector deals accounted for 15 per cent of the 2011 total, as cash-rich companies rushed to acquire shale gas reserves and made bolt-on acquisitions in coal, copper, iron ore and diamonds. But there were no transformational deals, the highly leveraged, double-digit billion-dollar bets that hobbled balance sheets pre-crisis. Will the same be true of 2012?