UK M&A increases by 5%: What will this mean to the U.S?

I just read an article in the Financial Times that in the U.K., despite the past mergers and acquisitions slump in the past few years, M&A "mega deals" have increased by 5%.  In addition, Britian alone has outperformed the averages of the rest of Europe, Asia, and the U.S.

Perhaps part of the reason that M&A deals are expanding and have spilled over to Europe is the investing opportunities in counties outside of the U.S.  Even though the UK is in the process of making their lending more accessible to borrowers, which of course includes entrepreneurs in middle-markets to get involved in M&A, other countries such as Africa and Vietnam are also slowly improving their interest rates, in addition to Europe's easy access for lending opportunities.  According to this Vietnam site for interest rates, Vietnam offers annual interest rates up to 11%.  It gets even better because Africa is offering annual interest rates in Ghana up to 16.65%.  Think that's high?  Try Uganda at an annual interest rate of 17.53%.

The lending opportunities that entrepreneurs have before them for 2013 has definitely expanded, allowing them to invest their money in other countries outside of the U.S., and to use their capital to grow externally by acquiring other companies in the UK and beyond.  Two companies that have already seized opportunities to expand internationally are Total and The Mariott Hotel.

According to this article, you will see on page 5 that in 2012, Total has expanded their liquified natural gases (LNG) supply at 1.3%.  These are contracts will create more momentum because this means Total has made contracts with international companies to create more profits for them as well as for themselves, which will indirectly create an increase in M&A in the next 10 years for the UK.

For The Mariott Hotel (MAR), a wall street journal article that I read in the Fall of 2012 (also another article on expanding in Asia), MAR has taken on a "pioneer approach" by deciding to expand in countries in Africa.  My prediction is that in the next 10 years, due partly to the increases in taxes by the U.S. government, the effect of expansion in these countries will create more momentum for M&A deals in Europe.  For Europe, the number of £1 billion-plus UK deals are now worth over £128 billion and may continue to grow by the attracting increase in interest rates and opportunities to invest and expand in other international countries.

In the future, the U.S. will face more competition from London's investment banking system, increasing London's value of M&A to rise above it's market share of M&A deals to be higher than 40%, putting pressure and hence, decrease demand on M&A deals in the U.S.

Resources: http://vietnam.deposits.org/, http://www.tradingeconomics.com/ghana/indicators, http://www.total.com/MEDIAS/MEDIAS_INFOS/5994/FR/Total-2012-financial-analyst-presentation-2.pdf, http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443720204578004243238970954.html?mg=reno64-wsj