Earlier this year, the cable news network CNBC dubbed 2014 “the year of the mega-merger,” a prediction that has proven more than accurate. Worldwide, mergers and acquisitions activity has already hit the $2 trillion mark this year, 75 percent higher than all of 2013, according to research by Thomson Reuters.
While big deals continue to surface—Reynolds American wants to buy rival Lorillard for $27 billion, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. covets Time Warner, Facebook shelled out $19 billion for the messaging service WhatsApp—much smaller deals, frequently multi-national ones, are increasingly routine.
