Global records have been broken for mergers and acquisitions in the first half 2021. Tech industry, which saw its fortunes rise with the pandemic, led this charge with unprecedented deals in excess of $671 billion.According to Refinitiv data, businesses had completed more than $2.8 trillion in acquisitions and mergers worldwide as of June 30. In a statement, Matt Toole, Refinitiv's director of deals intelligence, stated that in 40 years of monitoring mergers and acquisitions, we have never seen such rapid deal-making, both in terms of volume and value.A booming merger market is an indication that the economy is recovering from a slump caused by the pandemic. It's also a sign of a recovery supported by low interest rates, fiscal stimulus from countries around the world and a strong financial sector. Toole credits much of the growth in the tech industry to trends that began before the pandemic. These include the increase of private equity firms purchasing companies and the rise of special purpose acquisition companies (SPAC). Each of these trends gained steam this year. The current merger momentum is not slowing down. Toole said that while fiscal, monetary and regulatory policies will become more clear over the second half year, deal-making must adapt. However, current conditions are favorable for the momentum to continue.Tech leads M&A marketsNearly a quarter of all mergers or acquisitions made in the first half year were in the tech industry. Microsoft's April acquisition of Nuance Communications, a speech-to-text software company, for $19.7billion was one of the biggest deals. In May, Grab, a Singapore-based ride-hailing service, was made public through a special purpose acquisition company.Antitrust scrutiny has been raised by some of the tech deals in recent times. The US Justice Department is currently reviewing the $13 billion purchase by UnitedHealth Group of data analytics company Change Healthcare. Antitrust regulators around the globe have focused their attention on the tech sector, with most focusing on Silicon Valley tech giants like Google, Amazon, Google and Apple.Refinitivs data shows that the tech industry has experienced a rapid increase in deal volume than any other sector.
