After a record year in 2021, Deutsche Bank expects the merger and acquisition business to continue at a similar level in the coming year.

"I see no reason why we will not move at the extremely high level of the previous year in 2022," said Berthold Fürst, co-head of global business with Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), in an interview with FAZ

Klaus Max Smolka

Editor in business.

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According to the statistics of M&A data service providers, the current year has already broken the full year record of 2007 in terms of the total volume of all transactions.

At the request of the FAZ archive, Dealogic put the global volume as of Thursday at $ 5.3 trillion and that with German takeover targets at $ 150 billion.

Fürst named a number of factors that will continue to fuel the activity for the foreseeable future: tendencies to split up in very large companies;

a consolidation of the market as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, in which one company benefits from the weakness of the other;

social awareness, as expressed in sustainability criteria;

the pressure to invest in the private equity industry;

and industry-specific what is happening in the IT and health sector.

The record of 2007 has already been broken

It has been certain since October that 2021 will exceed 2007 in terms of global volume.

At that time, M&A volumes reached $ 4.6 trillion for the full year, according to Dealogic data.

The technology sector was the most active sector.

The financial news service Bloomberg, which calculated with a 2007 value of 4.1 trillion dollars, saw the record surpassed in October as well.

Fürst explained the high numbers, among other things, with a catch-up effect: After the start of the corona crisis in spring 2020, transactions were initially put on hold and later reissued.

The trend towards a split in industry that has existed for years has been particularly impressively confirmed in the past few weeks.

Three global companies announced corresponding resolutions within a short period of time: The American health care group Johnson & Johnson wants to spin off its consumer goods business into a separate listed company.

In Japan, where the culture of conglomerates has existed until now, Toshiba is splitting into three companies under pressure, mainly from foreign shareholders.

They should then act faster and more purposefully, explained the interim company boss Satoshi Tsunakawa.

Splitting up such a well-known large corporation is a novelty for Japan.

Conglomerates are splitting up

General Electric (GE) also wants to split itself into three parts - and that symbolizes the trend like perhaps no other case, as the American industrial group has long been considered the conglomerate par excellence.

Together with Siemens from Germany and Philips from the Netherlands, GE formed the trio of large western conglomerates.

Siemens said that under its former CEO, Joe Kaeser, it preferred to dismantle itself rather than having activist investors impose the process on him.

Philips - originally known for household appliances, light bulbs and consumer electronics - has sold one division after the other and is now largely limited to medical technology.

GE's health, aviation and energy businesses are to be listed on the stock exchange as separate entities.