May was the busiest month of 2022 for M&A transactions worth more than $10 billion, with seven such deals worldwide.
The deal count was the highest since June 2019, when there were nine M&A deals worth $10 billion or more announced globally.
The biggest global M&A deal of the month by transaction value was Broadcom Inc.'s $69.09 billion acquisition of the cloud management and software solutions company VMware Inc., announced May 26. The transaction is also the largest announced deal of 2022, just ahead of Microsoft Corp.'s planned $68.99 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc., announced in January, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data.
The transaction is the largest since Discovery Inc.'s acquisition of Warner Media LLC, announced in May 2021.
*M&A Insights: Deep mergers and acquisitions data that drive deal flow.
The $17.10 billion deal on May 4 between Black Knight Inc., a software solutions company, and Intercontinental Exchange Inc. kicked off the frenetic month of $10 billion-plus deals. Two deals were announced May 10: Prologis Inc.'s $27.54 billion acquisition of fellow industrial real estate investment trust Duke Realty Corp. and Pfizer Inc.'s $11.58 billion acquisition of Biohaven Pharmaceutical Holding Co. Ltd.
One day later, two more deals were announced: Philip Morris Holland Holdings BV's $17.31 billion acquisition of fellow tobacco company Swedish Match AB (publ) and DigitalBridge Group Inc.'s and IFM Investors Pty. Ltd.'s $10.58 billion acquisition of Switch Inc.
The other $10 billion-plus deal in May was HG Vora Capital Management LLC's $11.18 billion acquisition of trucking company Ryder System Inc.
The seven deals brought total global transaction value on deals valued at $10 billion or more to $466.36 billion for 2022 across 20 transactions.
Rising deal pace
The 11 deals of $10 billion or larger announced in the second quarter already match the total deal count from the second quarter of 2021.
The combined transaction value on the 11 deals, $294.58 billion, is already the highest for a quarter since the second quarter of 2019, when there were 15 transactions larger than $10 billion worth a total of $409 billion.
Goldman, J.P. Morgan continue to land big deals
Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC served as financial advisers representing VMware on its sale to Broadcom, which stands as the largest systems software deal of 2022.
BofA Securities Inc., Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Wells Fargo Securities LLC, Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC and Barclays Capital Inc. served as financial advisers to Broadcom.
With five $10 billion-plus deals advised in May, including the VMware-Broadcom deal, Goldman Sachs has now advised on 13 of the 20 $10 billion-plus announced deals in 2022, the most of any investment bank. Morgan Stanley advised four $10 billion-plus deals in May, the second-most deals of any investment bank.
