Windhoek – Sub-Saharan Africa was the preferred destinations mergers and acquisition deals during the last quarter of 2015, with the region attracting US$41.1 billion in mergers and acquisition, a whopping 283 percent year-on-year increase in the value of merger and acquisition transactions for the region.
The latest report this week by Thomson Reuters declared that the outbound merger and acquisition year-on-year growth figures for 2015 are “the highest annual period in any given year.”
Among the multi-billion dollar merger and acquisition (M&A) deal in South Africa that made headlines in the last four months of 2015 were the merger and acquisition of household retail and furniture group Steinhoff International with Genesis International Holdings of The Netherland, the merger deal between MediClinic and the United Arab Emirates’ Al Noor Hospital Group, the deal between media group Nasper and Keh eKommert of Russia.
“The value of announced M&A transactions with any Sub-Saharan African involvement reached US$66.7 billion for 2015, 73% more than the value registered during 2014,” said Sneha Shah, Managing Director, Africa, Thomson Reuters.
“Sub-Saharan African equity and equity-related issuance totalled US$3.9 billion during the fourth quarter of 2015, a 93% sequential increase in value from the third quarter of 2015. Sub-Saharan African debt issuance raised a total of US$15.5 billion in proceeds for 2015, a 22% decline compared to last year, and the lowest annual period since 2012,” she added.
Domestic and inter-Sub-Saharan African M&A reached US$11.9 billion, down 32 percent from last year.
South Africa was also the Sub-Saharan African country that had companies initiating merger and acquisitions deals with other countries outside the continent, with 74 percent of the US$6.7 billion in merger and acquisition deals outbound from South Africa, followed by Mauritius at 19 percent and Seychelles at 4 percent.
According to estimates from Thomson Reuters / Freeman Consulting, the results of these deals is that Sub-Saharan African investment banking fees reached US$476.4 million in 2015, 24 percent more than the value recorded during the same period of last year.
“Fees from completed M&A [merger and acquisitions] transactions totalled US$174.5 million, a 96 percent increase from last year and the highest annual period since 2011.
“Fees from debt capital markets underwriting also increased 41 percent year-on-year to reach US$63.0 million. Syndicated lending fees fell 21 percent from over a year ago to US$108.1 million.
“Equity capital markets underwriting fees grew 14 percent to US$130.8 million, and accounted for 27 percent of the overall Sub-Saharan African investment banking fee pool,” the report by Thomson Reuters says.
The report further found that Rand Merchant Bank earned the most investment banking fees in Sub-Saharan Africa for 2015, a total of US$48.5 million for a 10.2 percent share of the total fee pool.
Rand Merchant Bank also topped the completed M&A fee rankings during 2015. Java Capital Ltd took the lead for Equity Capital Market (ECM) underwriting with 14.4 percent share of the ECM fee pool.
Deutsche Bank took first place for Debt Capital Market (DCM) underwriting with 13.2 percent share of the total DCM fees. Standard Chartered ranked first place for syndicated loans fees and captured 11.1 percent of the loans fee share.
SOURCE: http://southernafrican.news/