Robust Deal Making Closes Out The Year
 
As deal makers rushed to complete deals before year end, the fourth quarter of 2011 saw strong activity in the health care merger and acquisition market. Based on data currently available, the M&A market in Q4:11 generated 247 deals worth a combined total of $40.2 billion. Health care services accounted for the majority of deal volume in the quarter while health care technology captured the lion’s share of dollar volume.
With 247 deals announced, Q4:11 showed a 6% gain over the 234 deals posted in the previous quarter, but a 12% drop from the 282 deals recorded in the year-ago quarter, Q4:10. In Q4:11, the health care services segment posted 139 deals, or 55% of the quarter’s total deal volume. Somewhat unusually, two services sectors ranked among the top three individual sectors. Long-Term Care came in first place with 38 deals while Medical Devices and Physician Medical Groups tied for second place with 34 deals each. Pharmaceuticals took fourth with 33. Rehab and Behavioral Health posted just three and four deals, respectively. The number of deals and percentage contribution of each sector to the overall market in Q4:11 appears in the table on page 9, along with comparisons to the previous and year-ago quarters.
Based on prices revealed to date, the health care technology segment attracted $27.8 billion, or 69% of the quarter’s total dollar volume. Biotechnology captured $18.4 billion followed by Managed Care with $5.9 billion and Medical Devices with $4.7 billion. The percentage contribution of each sector to overall dollar volume appears in the chart on page 10. The figures from five services sectors have been aggregated since their individual results were relatively small.
The fourth quarter produced eight billion-dollar deals worth a combined total of $26.2 billion. (There was also a ninth deal that fell just $5.0 million short of the billion-dollar threshold.) Thus, just 3% of the deals accounted for 65% of all health care M&A dollars spent in the quarter Five of these deals involved Biotechnology, two involved Managed Care and the eighth involved a Contract Research Organization…Want to read more? Click here for a free trial to The Health Care M&A Monthly and download the current issue today