Global dealmaking has sunk to its lowest level in three years due to a record value of withdrawn¹ bids, a sharp drop in US activity and a 20-year low for British involvement in takeover deals.

全球并购交易已下滑至三年来最低水平，原因包括创纪录金额的撤回报价，美国并购活动急剧下降，以及英国企业参与并购交易的水平跌至20年低点。

Data from Thomson Reuters show that merger² and acquisition activity has slowed markedly in the first three quarters of 2016, with companies agreeing to $2.37tn of deals — a 22 per cent drop compared with the record breaking activity of a year ago.

来自汤森路透(Thomson Reuters)的数据显示，合并和收购活动在2016年前三个季度显著放缓，企业达成了总计2.37万亿美元的交易，较一年前创纪录的并购活动下降22%。

This slowdown is at its sharpest in the US, where the value of M&A deals has fallen 31 per cent in the first nine months of the year, to $1tn.

这种放缓在美国最为明显，该国今年前九个月的并购交易总价值同比下滑31%，至1万亿美元。

But around the world a series of big deals has fallen apart, contributing to a record value of withdrawn bids of $692bn.

但世界各地有一系列大笔交易半途夭折，使撤回报价的总价值达到创纪录的6920亿美元。

“There is caution in light of the number of deals that have been blocked,” said Rob Kindler³, global head of M&A at Morgan Stanley. He pointed⁴ to deals doomed⁵ from the outset such as the $6.3bn Staples⁶ and Office Depot⁷ merger, which was blocked by US regulators, saying the companies had been “forced into a deal by activists⁸”.

“面对被否决的交易数量，企业表现出谨慎，”摩根士丹利(Morgan Stanley)并购部门全球负责人罗布•金德勒(Rob Kindler)表示。他指出，有些交易，比如被美国监管机构封杀的Staples和Office Depot（美国两家办公室用品零售商——译者注）63亿美元合并计划，从一开始就注定不了了之；他称，这些公司是“被维权投资者逼着做交易的”。

Deals with a value of $5bn or more accounted for $817bn of the total volume, a 40 per cent decrease on last year. However, a number of the year’s biggest deals were agreed in the third quarter, including Bayer’s $66bn takeover of rival Monsanto.

50亿美元以上的交易总计达到8170亿美元，比去年减少40%。然而，今年最大的几笔交易在第三季度达成，包括拜耳(Bayer)以660亿美元收购竞争对手孟山都(Monsanto)。

Daniel Wolf, an M&A partner at law firm Kirkland & Ellis in New York, said judging the market just by the total dollar volume of deals was a mistake. “A much better metre is the number of overall deals that have been carried out and that’s gone up measurably,” he said.

纽约凯易律师事务所(Kirkland & Ellis)并购业务合伙人丹尼尔•沃尔夫(Daniel Wolf)表示，从并购交易美元总值来评判市场是一个错误。“一个好得多的衡量标准是达成的交易总数，那个数字明显上升，”他说。

Figures show about 140 deals of more than $1bn were announced in the three months to the end of September — roughly in line with the average over the past 10 quarters.

数据显示，在截至9月底的三个月里宣布了约140笔超过10亿美元的交易，与过去10个季度的平均数量大致相符。

But UK involvement in dealmaking, which typically accounts for 10-20 per cent of global activity, has slipped to just 8 per cent so far this year, its lowest level in two decades. The drop came even as some big deals, such as the ￡24.3bn takeover of chip designer Arm Holdings by Japan’s SoftBank, were agreed in the aftermath of the UK’s Brexit vote.

但是，通常占全球并购活动10%-20%的英国参与水平，今年迄今降至仅仅8%，这是20年来最低水平，尽管一些大笔交易，如软银(SoftBank)以243亿英镑收购英国芯片设计公司ARM控股(Arm Holdings)，是在英国公投退欧之后达成的。

Overall, European deal volumes have dropped 19 per cent, to $484bn, compared with last year, while Asia-Pacific activity has fallen 20 per cent to $625bn.

总体而言，欧洲的交易总价值同比下降19%，至4840亿美元，而亚太地区的活动同比下降20%，至6250亿美元。