Earth sweltered to the third hottest August on record as M&A yet again proved to be as hot as the summer according to IFLR1000's selection of deal announcements, with healthy dealflow in the debt capital markets, especially in the investment grade and high yield space. Cutting across practice areas, in the past month the most active industries were transport, insurance, oil and gas, and technology and telecommunications.
Japanese tech company SoftBank has been hurtling billions of dollars into public and private tech companies in the past year, with some of these investments coming from the gargantuan $93 billion SoftBank Vision Fund that includes funds from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund and tech companies like Apple, Foxconn, Qualcomm and Sharp. One such example came this August with SoftBank's $4.4 billion Vision Fund investment in US office-sharing company WeWork; and the company furthered its investment strategy in India by investing $2.5 billion in Flipkart, an Indian e-commerce startup, which was the largest private investment in India's consumer technology space, and takes Softbank's total investment in India to $6 billion.
M&A deal values were slightly lower this month at just over $45 billion at the top end of the market, with White & Case leading the field at a 150.8% value increase for itself when compared to this time last year. Kirkland & Ellis slotted into second place with just over $40 billion in deals—including acting for Bain and Cinven in its €5.3 billion takeover of Stada—but with 42 deals in August it took top place in the deal volume table for the eleventh time in the past 13 months.
Elsewhere we have seen a number of landmark deals. Transocean—one of the world's largest drilling rig operators—bought Norwegian competitor Songa Offshore for NKr9.1 billion ($1.2 billion) in the biggest offshore drilling industry deal since oil prices collapsed three years ago; SPARC EM issued $618.71 million series 2017-1 notes to finance the construction of Line 2 of the Panama City Metro, which was the first time in Panama that bonds were backed by no-objection certificates (CDNOs), and the first time a transaction of this nature was listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange; and Total acquired Mærsk Olie og Gas (Maersk Oil & Gas) fora hefty $7.45 billion from Møller – Mærsk.
In the debt capital markets, Apple completed a C$2.5 billion maple bond offering that was Apple’s first ever Canadian dollar private placement offering; Tesla Motors made a $1.8 billion 5.3% high yield offering that was its first ever offering of high yield notes; and French electrical power transmission network Co-entreprise de Transport d'Electricite (CTE) issued €2.92 billion in bonds.
If you have any public deal announcements you would like us to take into account for our reports please send them to - amajeed@iflr1000.com
The EMEA launch of IFLR1000 Deal Data—a fully searchable database whose BETA version went live in May last year—is well underway with Asia-Pacific close at hand. This database of significant deal records from over 120 countries will include searchable and filterable data on the most significant legal transactions from around the globe, and all of our featured monthly deals will be included along with many more garnered from the IFLR1000's own research, press releases and other deal announcements.
Below you can access our top picks for August 2017 linked to their record in the new deals database.
Adam Majeed - Asia-Editor
Mergermarket table 1 - Law firms by global M&A deal value
Mergermarket table 2 - Law firms by global M&A deal volume
Deal 1: Allianz £500 million acquisition of 49% stake in LV =
Jurisdictions: United Kingdom
Deal type: Joint venture, Private acquisition
Industry sectors: Insurance
Deal 2: Apple C$2.5 billion maple bond offering
Jurisdictions: Canada
Deal type: Investment grade bond/note issue
Industry sectors: Technology and telecommunications
Deal 3: Bain and Cinven €5.3 billion takeover of Stada
Jurisdictions: Germany
Deal type: Leveraged finance, Public acquisition
Industry sectors: Pharmaceuticals and life sciences
Deal 4: Co-entreprise de Transport d'Electricite (CTE) €2.92 billion bond issue
Jurisdictions: France
Deal type: Investment grade bond/note issue
Industry sectors: Energy
Deal 5: Grandland Group €467 million acquisition of Permasteelisa
Jurisdictions: Italy
Deal type: Private acquisition
Industry sectors: Construction and materials
Deal 6: Leonard Green & Partners £2.4 billion acquisition of CPA Global
Jurisdictions: United Kingdom
Deal type: Private acquisition
Industry sectors: Investment management
Deal 7: Lima Metro Line 1 $316 million financing
Jurisdictions: Peru
Deal type: Project development, Project finance
Industry sectors: Transport
Deal 8: Metro de Panama $618.7 million securitization
Jurisdictions: Panama
Deal type: Project finance, Securitisation
Industry sectors: Transport
Deal 9: Omantel $846 million acquisition of 9.84% in Zain
Jurisdictions: Kuwait
Deal type: Public acquisition
Industry sectors: Technology and telecommunication
Deal 10: SoftBank $4.4 billion investment in WeWork
Jurisdictions: United States, Japan
Deal type: Financial investment
Industry sectors: Real estate
Deal 11: SoftBank $2.5 billion investment in Flipkart
Jurisdictions: India, Japan
Deal type: Financial investment
Industry sectors: Technology and telecommunications
Deal 12: Tesla Motors $1.8 billion 5.3% high yield offering
Jurisdictions: United States
Deal type: High-yield bond/note issue
Industry sectors: Automotive
Deal 13: Total $7.45 billion acquisition of Maersk Oil & Gas
Jurisdictions: United States, Denmark, France, United Kingdom
Deal type: Private acquisition
Industry sectors: Oil and gas
Deal 14: Transocean NKr9.1 billion acquisition of Songa Offshore
Jurisdictions: Cyprus, Norway, Switzerland
Deal type: Public acquisition
Industry sectors: Oil and gas
Deal 15: VPBank HOSE IPO
Jurisdictions: Vietnam
Deal type: IPO
Industry sectors: Banking
Deal 16: Yunfeng Financial Group $1.7 billion acquisition of MassMutual Asia
Jurisdictions: Hong Kong
Deal type: Public acquisition
Industry sectors: Insurance
Reporters
Sam Duke - Editor
Adam Majeed - Asia-Pacific Editor
Ben Naylor - EMEA Editor
Jon Moore - Journalist EMEA
Jordan Hughes - Journalist EMEA
Wai Yee Tsang - Journalist Asia-Pacific
Rani Mehta - Journalist Latin America
Kurt Stumpo - Journalist - North America and the Caribbean
Katrin Kostadinova - Data Analyst - Global