01/06/2009 14h53
Mergers break record of US$ 95 billion in 2008
Valor Econômico 01/06/2009
Mergers and acquisitions break a historical record in Brazil in 2008, amounting to US$ 95.3435 billion, according to the Thomson Reuters. The volume of announced transactions was 62.2% bigger than 2007's record of US$ 58.7795 billion. For this year, the perspective is that the activity should continue strong, with many consolidations in the financial sector and in the sector of commodities, believes José Olympio Pereira, responsible for the Credit Suisse investment bank in Brazil, the financial institution that most provided assistance in this kind of operation in Brazil last year, with more than 40% of the market. According to him, 2009 will be a "challenging" year in which "alternative currencies" will have to be used in mergers and acquisitions. With the shortage of credit, the very seller will have to finance the sale and more transactions will be paid with stocks, he evaluates. "A lot of creativity will be necessary", he says, since he does not see more room for leveraged acquisitions. According to the executive, although the strong activity continues, the volume of transactions should be smaller than 2008's this year. Hardly US$ 10 billion operations - such as the purchase of Brasil Telecom by Oi, the mergers of Unibanco/Itaú and Bovespa/BM&F - will be repeated at the same rate as last year. Even in last December, an especially weak month in the capital markets all over the world, there were transactions of R$ 5.3 billion announced involving Brazilian companies, according to Thomson Reuters. In the end of December,
Investimentos e Participações em Infra-estrutura S.A (Invepar) acquired the share control of
Metrô Rio by R$ 996 million (US$ 433 million). Usiminas, on its turn, announced the purchase, by R$ 160 million (US$ 69.6 million), of Zamprogna, a company from Rio Grande do Sul that produces pipes. In the middle of the crisis that affects the international car industry, German group Man, Europe's second biggest truck producer, announced the acquisition of 100% of the shares of
Volkswagen Caminhões e Ônibus do Brasil a deal that amounted to US$ 1.175 billion. Vale disclosed the purchase of assets for the export of coal from the Colombian
Cementos Argos by US$ 300 million). The transaction in which the American fund Paladin, specialized in the real estate market, acquired the control of the real estate developer company InPar, which may yield InPar R$ 180 million (US$ 78.3 million), was also considered.
