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The global M&A boom By all accounts, businesses in many industries are exhibiting a tremendous urge to merge in a number of economies around the world. General merger and acquisition (M&A) activity skyrocketed to over $1 trillion last year. Nearly two thirds of this activity took place in the US, a $650 billion total that was nearly twice the last peak in volume back in the 1980's. And of the US total, six "mega" deals topped $10 billion each, representing one quarter of the activity. Big companies are clearly getting biggerbut are they getting better? Robust pricing in the stock market has clearly played an important role in the resurgence of M&A in the US providing acquirers with a premium-priced currency with which to pay for acquisitions. And while the public market has received a great deal of attention of late, the private market is by no means a sideshow. Acquisitions of private companies were reportedly up 84 percent last year, suggesting that there is more to the M&A boom than meets the eye. But how are these trends playing out in the hospitality industry? Hotel industry M&A In the 1980's we saw some large-scale acquisitions of hospitality companies including amongst others, Hilton International, Inter-Continental, Westin, Holiday Inns, Motel 6 and Omni. In each of these cases, international buyers acquired established, branded companies driven by a variety of motivations including brand acquisition, business and geographic diversification, product extension and rationalization... To read the complete article, click here to download the printable pdf file (63 kb).
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