Large M&A finished 2023 at a better pace than it started.

Four $10 billion-plus M&A deals were announced globally in December 2023, making the month the most active for transactions of that size since there were seven in May 2022, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data. The pace of announcements was much slower at the beginning of 2023, with the year's first $10 billion-plus deal not announced until February.

The late-year announcements brought some "normalization" back to large-scale M&A after "a sputtering start" to the year, according a December 2023 M&A outlook report from Goldman Sachs.

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The fourth quarter of 2023 finished with seven $10 billion-plus deals announced with a total value of $192.61 billion, the highest amount since the 11 deals announced in the second quarter of 2022, which had a total value of $339.52 billion. Still, the announcements during the final months of the year were not enough to offset the slow start's drag on deal count, which fell to 23 in 2023 from 25 in 2022 and 37 in 2021.

Industry view

While the number of large deals has slipped, the industries that produce the most big-deal targets have been relatively steady.

Since 2018, the industries with the most $10 billion-plus deals have been application software with 12, biotechnology with 11 and oil and gas exploration and production with eight. In 2023, those three industries recorded the highest number of $10 billion-plus deals with three each.

December 2023 deals

Biotech and oil and gas exploration and production accounted for two of the transactions announced in December 2023, with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. disclosing a $12.54 billion deal for Karuna Therapeutics Inc., and Occidental Petroleum Corp. announcing a $12.00 billion deal for CrownRock LP.

The largest deal of December came from the insurance brokerage industry, with Aon PLC announcing a $13.63 billion acquisition of NFP Corp. Aon's deal was announced about 18 months after antitrust concerns led it to terminate an even larger transaction, a roughly $30 billion deal for Willis Towers Watson PLC. Aon's latest deal agreement is not expected to face the same concern from regulators.

The only other $10 billion-plus M&A transaction announced in December was Nippon Steel Corp.'s $13.59 billion transaction for U.S. Steel Corp.