The FINANCIAL — All eyes in the metal industry will be on the lookout for a silver lining in the uncertain economic horizon this year as a PwC report out today predicts.
Mega deals will dwindle against a surge in smaller announcements according to Forging Ahead, with CEOs holding onto their purse strings.
In PwC's annual in-depth metals M&A review and forecast, the headline trend is for a continuing recovery from a post credit-crunch low with Asia being the 'star' region dominating the 2012 deals market. It accounted for 68% of totals deals value, more than three times the 19% share it held in 2011, acording to PwC.
Jim Forbes, global metals leader, PwC, said:
"There is no doubt that the industry is facing some of its toughest challenges yet as companies battle the headwinds of ongoing economic uncertainty and unpredictable costs around raw materials and energy. On the surface, we are still seeing some mega-deals but they are fewer and if we created a top 10 of the deals announced and completed in 2012 just half would have been valued above US$1 bn.
"We also found through our analysis that the metals sector has experienced a 'double dip' downturn in M&A activity with deal numbers outside the Asia Pacific region falling back down to the post-credit crunch low of 2009."
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