The Biggest Deals
of the Decade
Claire Williams | December 23, 2019
This past decade had a historic number of acquisitions, and we’ve witnessed some of the biggest players across all industries shake up their respective spaces. Months or even years of negotiation (and government approval) later, they’ve challenged competitors and created a sense of urgency to keep up in 2020.
With the new year right around the corner, and no sign of the market slowing down, we wanted to reflect on the last decade’s largest and most influential M&As. So without further-ado, here are the biggest mergers and acquisitions over the last 10 years!
2010
Carso Global Telecom and America Movil
Amount: $27.4B
Industry: Communications
Other notable deals: Qwest Communications and CenturyLink Inc ($22.2B); American Life Insurance and MetLife Inc ($15.5B); British Sky Broadcasting and News Corp ($13.7B); Coca-Cola Enterprises and Coca Cola Co ($13.4B)
2011
Amount: $12.5B (sold to Lenovo in 2014 for $3B)
Industry: Technology
Other notable deals: Microsoft and Skype ($8.5B)
2012
2013
Verizon Communications and Verizon Wireless
Amount: $130B
Industry: Communications
Other notable deals: Berkshire Hathaway, 3G Capital, and Heinz ($28B); Michael Dell, Silver Lake Partners, and Dell ($24.4B); Softbank and Sprint Corporation ($21.6B)
2014
2015
Amount: $130B
Industry: Industrial Bioscience
Other notable deals: Anhesuer-Busch InBev and SAB Miller ($107B); Heinz and Kraft ($100B); Charter Communications and Time Warner Cable ($78.7B); Actavis and Allergan, Inc ($70.5B); Royal Dutch Shell and BG Group ($70B)
2016
Amount: $90B
Industry: Industrial Bioscience
Other notable deals: Bayer and Monsanto ($54.5B); ChemChina and Syngenta ($43B); Shire plc and Baxalta ($32B); Softbank and ARM Holdings ($32B); Microsoft and LinkedIn ($26.2B)
2017
Amount: $70B
Industry: Health
Other notable deals: Essilor and Luxottica ($58.5B); United Technologies and Rockwell Collins ($30B); Agrium and Potash Corp of Saskatchewan Inc ($25B)
2018
Amount: $85.5B
Industry: Communications
Other notable deals: The Walt Disney Company and 21st Century Fox ($71.3B); Takeda Pharmaceutical and Shire plc ($62B); Cigna and Express Scripts ($53B); Comcast Corporation and Sky plc ($39B)
2019
United Technologies (Aerospace Division) and Raytheon
Amount: $121B
Industry: Technology
Other notable deals: Bristol Myers Squib and Celegene ($74B); Saudi Aramco and SABIC ($69.1B); Abbvie and Allergan plc ($63B); Groupe PSA and Fiat Chrysler ($50B); Occidental Pretroleum Corp and Anadarko Petroleum ($38B)
As we enter the a new decade of deals, we’ll see a new wave of legal technology and innovation. Heretik’s number one objective is to provide our clients a toolkit that allows for the right amount of flexibility within a repeatable and scalable framework to tackle large document review projects. Our clients are using our solution to tackle all sorts of projects in addition to mergers and acquisitions, such as LIBOR, contract investigations, lease review and abstractions and even eDiscovery! But since we’re talking M&A, check out how TransPerfect used Heretik on a recent due diligence project for over $90k in savings!
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CLAIRE WILLIAMS
Claire is a Marketing Coordinator at Heretik. She recently graduated from Miami University Ohio with a double major in Journalism and Mandarin Chinese. Prior to Heretik, Claire worked at Amdur Productions and for Miami University College of Arts and Science.
