NEW YORK-The pace of mergers and acquisitions slowed considerably during the last quarter of 2000, although the year closed with an all-time high of 9,602 transactions in all industries, Los Angeles-based Mergerstat reported.
For the full year, the domestic M&A market posted about $1.4 trillion in total disclosed deal values, just shy of the $1.45 trillion record set in 1999.
The communications sector accounted for $85.6 billion of the total, for a fifth-place ranking after: leisure and entertainment, with $183.8 billion; computer software, supplies and services, with $147 billion; banking and finance, with $128.4 billion; and electronics, with $99 billion.
For the full year, Cisco Systems Inc., which announced 25 acquisitions, and AT&T Corp., which announced 23, ranked third and fourth, respectively, among the most active buyers.
Merger participants reported a total of 2,027 transactions in all industries during the fourth quarter, an 11.1-percent decline compared with the same period of 1999. Disclosed valuations for reported transactions were just $282.4 billion, down from $456.8 billion during the year-ago quarter.
Computer software, supplies and services, comprised $13.9 billion of this quarterly total, while communications accounted for $7.52 billion and electronics for $6.3 billion.
In communications, two purchases by Telefonica SA of Motorola Inc. assets, made up $2.64 billion, just more than one-third of the total in the sector. The Verizon Communications Inc. announced acquisition of Price Communications Wireless Inc. accounted for another $1.5 billion of the announced merger values in the industry last quarter.
Broken out by Standard Industrial Classification, or SIC, codes, telegraph and other message communications ranked seventh among the top 10 kinds of sellers. During the fourth quarter of 2000, there were 37 sellers in this category, or 1.7 percent of the cross-sector total.
These companies also ranked eighth out of the top 10 buyers last quarter, participating in 38 deals, or 1.8 percent of the total. Companies classified as telephone communications other than radiotelephone ranked fifth, acting as acquirers in 43 transactions, or 2 percent of the overall total during the last three months of the year.
