The last ten days ...

The M&A activity has finally reached a pace where it can be termed fever pitch. The last 10 days were the most active 10 days for M&A in over 4 years.

While the number/size of the transactions is impressive, the general lack of competing bids is of real concern. It looks like most of the bigger/potential buyers are still on the sidelines. There is still a lot of (unwarranted ?) caution.

I am sure that a few of these hesitant players will regret their (in)decision. The sooner that happens the better. The current convoluted bids and counterbids among the gold players is the kind of action I would like to see in the software/content/oil sectors - with the only additional cnodition being that it involve not tens, but hundreds of companies over the next 3 years or so.

Another thing of concern is the amount of detail leaked before the actual formal merger announcements. Shouldn't we be hearing something from a regulatory body about it ?