Business mergers and acquisitions involving a Belgian actor represented not less than 40 billion euro in 2019, that is 75% more than the previous year, L'Echo and De Tijd report.
Over the past twelve months, transactions involving a buyer, a seller or a Belgian target represented some 40 billion euro, according to figures collated by Dealogic.
The amount is nearly 75% higher than last year's figure (23 billion).
This increase, striking at first sight, is due in large part to two of the brewing giant AB InBev's operations: the sale of its Australian subsidiary CUB to Asahi for 10 billion euro and the sale of its 13% shareholding in its Asian branch in the context of a stock market listing in Hong Kong valued at 4.5 billion euro.
However, even without these two mega deals, the Belgian market performed well with a total amount of 25.5 billion euro (+11% over a year).
This result is the fruit of a growing number of operations involving more than 500 million euro. There are 13 in 2019, up from 9 in 2018 and 8 in 2017.
Four Belgian deals exceeded the billion-euro mark over the last twelve months.
The Brussels Times
