Mega Mergers!

There's bullish news in the Wall Street Journal news pages today: Blizzard of Deals Heralds an Era Of Megamergers

There's no end in sight for this year's parade of megamergers.

In less than 100 hours starting last Friday, around $110 billion in acquisition deals were sealed world-wide in sectors ranging from natural gas, to copper, to mouthwash to steel, linking investors and industrialists from India, to Canada, to Luxembourg to the U.S.

The deals -- which included the marriages of Arcelor SA to Mittal Steel Co., Phelps Dodge Corp. to both Inco Ltd. and Falconbridge Ltd. and Johnson & Johnson to the consumer-brands division of Pfizer Inc. -- provided striking evidence that 2006 is on pace to be the most-active merger year in history, as measured in absolute dollars. The year-end tally could top $3.5 trillion, based on Thomson Financial figures.

Heightened merger activity is a better measure that Ann Arbor’s bogus "Consumer Confidence Level." Folks paying attention are willing to play with real money. This augers well for continued economic expansion.

Economics and Markets Posted by jk at June 27, 2006 3:53 PM