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Bolstered by strong activity in the fourth quarter, Mexico saw a 1.95% rise in M&A deals in 2016, recording 314 total transactions for the year with a total publicly reported value of US$29.6bn.

While 2016 outperformed 2015 in terms of the number of transactions, with 308 deals announced the previous year, 2015 saw a higher value of the deals reported publicly at US$32.5bn, which meant there was a 9.1% decline last year.

"The trend with the Mexican market followed the global trend, where the number of operations was a little less than in 2015," said Daniel del Río, a partner with Mexico City international law firm Basham, Ringe and Correa, cited in the M&A yearly report from Transactional Track Record. "Nevertheless, we posit that the trend was positive, having increased in the number of low value transactions (small and medium)."

The fourth quarter produced 91 of the deals, and the strongest performance for the year came from the real estate sector (50 deals) and in finance and insurance (42 deals), according to TTR data. In 4Q16 alone, the real estate sector 18 transactions, while finance and insurance saw 13 such deals.

Citing it as the biggest deal for Mexico in the final quarter, TTR highlighted the acquisition of 49% of Mexico City toll highway Autopista Arco Norte in a deal valued at roughly US$936mn. The stake was sold by Mexican infrastructure conglomerate IDEAL to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board's Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan (OTPP).

The late year bump helped counterbalance a lackluster third quarter, which saw only 53 deals, totaling US$8.36bn.

Throughout 2016, TTR reported that 114 deals were for less than US$100m, 32 were valued at between US$100mn and US$500mn, and 19 were valued at more than US$500mn, with the remaining deals' values not revealed.

Looking at cross-border mergers and acquisitions, Mexican firms were most active abroad in the US, Spain and Argentina, which saw 12, 9 and 8 deals, respectively. In terms of value, Mexican firms' largest M&A investments went to Chile (US$2.02bn in reported transactions), the US (US$1.53bn) and Spain (US$1.21bn).

The US and Israel invested the largest sums for M&A deals in 2016, according to the report, posting US$4.08bn in 33 deals and US$2.3bn in 14 deals, respectively.

Source: Business News Americas / BN Americas - Chile