Report: M&A seen strong among private companies

May 23 - Corp DealMaker Blog (The Deal) - The folks over at Grant Thornton International Ltd. put together an international business report, entitled titled Mergers and acquisitions: Opportunities for global growth. The report confirms what we've been hearing for months: that the recent tightening of lending policy and an uncertain economic outlook has had an impact on transactions worldwide at the top end of the market.

But they also found that privately held businesses in the BRIC economies, North America, mainland Europe, the U.K. and Ireland, and the rest of the world are confident about their prospects for M&A over the next three years. Privately held businesses in China were the most bullish, with 67% predicting deal activity over the next three years, followed by Brazil at 64%. Forty-eight percent of private U.S. businesses expect to do deals in the time period. Read complete report.