M&A MARKET UPDATE JANUARY 2019 U.S. MONTHLY REVIEW
Notable Trends in January 2019
Year to date, U.S. M&A deal activity has decreased on a year over year basis by 40%. Through January, the 2019 completed deal count is 589 deals versus 979 deals in 2018. Conversely, capital invested is up 46.9%, going from $50 billion for January in 2018 to $73 billion YTD in 2019. The median deal size has increased substantially from $40 million in 2018 to $85 million in 2019, correlating with the rise in capital invested.
For the month of January, deal count was down compared to 2018 but the M&A sector has seen a rebound from the low deal count during November and December of 2018. While the deal count has picked up from the previous months, the capital invested in January is down 47% from December. The relatively high median deal size, compared to January in 2018, is partly contributed to by the $14.6 billion acquisition of Scana by Dominion Resources and the $8 billion acquisition of Qualtics by SAP.
