The Health Care M&A Monthly: Health Care Ends 2002 With $100 Billion in M&A Deals

By several measures, it was a good year for health care M&A activity.
At the date of this issue, a total of 895 transactions have been announced in the health care industry. With two weeks left in 2002, the year will surpass 900 deals.
This figure represents a 10% increase in deal volume over 2001’s 820 deals, but it still falls short of the high-water mark of 1,282 deals in 1997 (which excludes health care technology).
Based on prices announced so far, a total of $99.8 billion has been committed to finance these 895 deals. When we take into account those deals without accompanying prices and those deals to be announced in the next two weeks, the total figure will almost certainly reach the $100 billion mark.
This figure represents a 33% increase over 2001, when $75.3 billion was spent to finance that year’s 820 deals.
By mid-December, the health care industry accounted for 13% of all the 6,950 U.S. and U.S. cross-border deals announced. More to the point, it accounted for 24%, or nearly one dollar in every four, of the total $418 billion spent to finance this year’s M&A activity.
This makes health care the most active sector in the M&A market, ahead of second-place banking and finance with its $43.2 billion worth of deals.