FALLS IN Q3
while in Asia, M&A was US$226 billion, up 11 per cent year-on-year.
“The market for deals overall has held up well, given the rich valuations and macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty,” said Mark Shafir, co-head of global M&A at Citigroup Inc.
However, private equity firms defied expensive valuations and at bureaus in Asia and Europe. At the time, the company said “we remain committed to covering the region.”
Like other newspapers, the WSJ is trying to attract more subscribers online to make up for the steady decline in print advertising. took advantage of cheap debt financing terms to spend the mountains of cash they have raised from investors on acquisitions.
Global private equity-backed M&A activity has reached US$212 billion year-to-date, a 25 per cent increase compared to last year and the highest since 2007. In the most recent quarter, the parent’s ad revenue fell 12 per cent.
The WSJ had about 1.3 million digital-only subscribers at the end of the quarter. The paper has also been raising the price of subscriptions.
In the value of Chinese overseas M&A deals jumped in the third quarter after several large transactions, and dealmakers expect continued momentum as recovering economic fundamentals damp the need for restrictions on capital outflows.
Overseas deals this year by Asia-Pacific’s most active buyers reached US$118 billion year-todate, nearly half of which were announced in the past three months, Thomson Reuters data showed yesterday.
But the amount is 29 per cent lower than the same period of last year, when a record US$221 billion was spent on assets as varied as movie studios and soccer clubs. Such was the buying that China’s government began placing restrictions on overseas deals to stop huge outflows of funds destabilising the yuan.
The yuan has since stabilised, while China’s foreign reserves have risen. The government has also been encouraging deals which support its Belt and Road initiative, whereby it aims to create a modern-day equivalent to the ancient Silk Road international trading network.
As such, investors were scouting for deals in anticipation of the government relaxing restrictions on overseas M&As, said bankers and dealmakers. Bloomberg
The Asian edition was launched in 1976, with Europe starting in 1983, it said.
Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, competes with News Corp and the WSJ in providing financial news and services. Bloomberg