In 2008, nearly every global and U.S. category was off, according to a William Blair report, and 2009 looks little better. An exception: U.S. deals under $50-million in value. Roy Harris - CFO.com | US January 28, 2009
As year-end tallies of merger-and-acquisition activity for 2008 start to roll in, William Blair & Co.'s "Merger Tracker" summary may capture it all in a single cliché. "M&A activity ended 2008," it concludes, "with a resounding thud."
The report, focusing mainly on middle-market activity, also breaks down the relative plunges for the year in a number of areas - after calculating that the overall number of global deals slid 6.2 percent, to 38,033 announced transactions, with dollar volumes declining 33.3 percent, to $2.85 trillion. Still, it does identify several global and U.S. subsectors that could be exempt from the report's similarly bleak 2009 projections.
http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/13021174/c_13021479?f=TodayInFinance012909
