The Buyout Boom

From today's DealBook blog:

The explosive growth of private equity deals is a well-documented trend by now, but some new numbers from Thomson Financial underscore just how enormous the volume of buyouts has become. Consider this: So far this year, the volume of global announced deals involving private equity firms is $447 billion, more than double the volume from the same period in 2006 — a year that was no slouch was far as buyouts were concerned. In the United States, the rise has been even sharper. At $281 billion, U.S. private equity deals have more than tripled from a year ago, boosted by the recent buyouts of Alltel, First Data and others.
Other highlights from Thomson Financial’s latest mergers and acquisitions statistics:
* Private equity deals worldwide have made up more than a fifth of all M&A so far this year, a gain of about 4 percentage points over last year. In the United States, leveraged buyouts account for 35 percent of all activity, up from about 16 percent last year.
* Total merger-and-acquisition volume so far this year is $2.18 trillion, 77 percent above last year at this time. In the U.S., volume is at $802 billion, up 54 percent. In Europe, volume is up 129 percent, at $983.6 billion.
* Strategic deals are up 69 percent, at $1.7 billion worldwide.
* Just two sectors, retail and telecommunications, are lagging behind last year in M&A activity. The recent deal for Texas Pacific Group and a unit of Goldman Sachs to buy wireless provider Alltel may signal a change for that second sector. It was the biggest-ever leveraged buyout of a telecommunications provider and the fifth-biggest L.B.O. of all time.