CARLO BUONAMICO
Tks Publisher

Abstract

The number of completed and pending deals combined tells the future of the chemical industry will see strong mergers, also at international level. Here we comment on the Chemical Executive M&A report by A.T. Kearney

Is the chemical industry at a standstill? Quite the contrary, actually. Especially if we look at it in terms of mergers and acquisitions (M&A), the outlook of which is poised to shape the industry in 2017 and the foreseeable future.

This, in short, is what the Chemical Executive M&A report by A.T. Kearney shows. The report is the result of analysis work of M&A completed and pending deals activity from 2001 and 2016, which has compared available data with interviews to top executives of chemical companies, mutual funds and banks.

The value of completed M&A deals in 2016 declined compared with 2015 (from 119 to 94 billion dollars), but the backlog of deals has seen a surge like never before with more than twice the backlog at the end of 2015, from 117 to 310 billion dollars (see Figure 1).

Amongst these, potentially worth around 230 billion dollars, we have Bayer’s acquisition of Monsanto, ChemChina’s acquisition of Syngenta and Praxair and Linde’s intent to merge. This is an ongoing trend, which has seen the backlog of M&A deals double since 2014.

In 2017, we may witness 4 megadeals being complet ...