Actually, no.  But we are seing some indications that strategic buyers are at least tip-toeing back into the mergers and acquisitions market.

For several years, the access to cheap credit provided the liquidity and leverage to fuel the largest acquisitions boom in the past 20 years.  Private equity firms were increasingly able to bid up prices using cheap capital and aggressive capital structures, sidelining many strategic acquirers who needed to justify acquisitions using more traditional models.  With the credit markets drying up in the past 18 months, private equity firms have been forced out of the game, and there is little indication that we’ll see any return of the mania until the credit markets at least return to normal.

However, there are some indications that strategic buyers are gradually stepping up efforts to take out rivals and expand market share, even as share prices have fallen in the past eight months.  Foreign companies are taking advantage of the cheap dollar to acquire US-based rivals, most prominently InBev’s acquisition of Anheuser-Busch – see agreements involving Anheuser-Busch here.  And some US-based companies are also making noise:

• Skechers USA bid on Heelys for less than 15% of what it was priced for just 2 years ago (see many Skechers agreements here), and
• CVS Caremark Corp made an unsolicited bid for Longs Drugs for $3+ billion last week as well.

We’ll be posting these merger agreements alongside our library of millions of legal agreements and clauses from top law firms and the largest companies in the world over the coming weeks.  Of course, we’ll be keeping an eye on the overall market trends on not just the mergers and acquisitions space but also across the many other practice areas we cover.