The Year of the Mega-M.B.O.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that there have already been nearly $39 billion worth of deals either led or initiated by top executives so far this year. For all of last year, such deals amounted to just $6.5 billion. To be clear, the number of management-led buyouts is still far behind last year. This year has seen 18 such deals so far; there were 73 in 2005. But the deals of 2006 have generally been large ones.