Europe’s busiest day for takeovers worth €5.7bn

ROYAL Bank of Scotland Group, Denmark’s Elsam, and a group of buy-out firms made acquisitions totalling €5.7 billion in Europe’s busiest day for takeovers this year, benefiting advisers such as Merrill Lynch & Co and UBS.

For the first time since December, there were three European deals worth more than $1 billion on a single day. Royal Bank agreed to pay €0.9 billion for Irish lender First Active. Pub operator Spirit Group and private-equity partners will pay €3.68 billion for Scottish & Newcastle plc’s pub business. Danish power producer Elsam plans to buy Nesa for €1.14 billion. The purchases come after the value of global takeovers declined in the first nine months of the year to the lowest since 1996, say Dealogic Inc.

“Strategic M&A dialogue never went away, but what did go was the confidence to follow through on the deals,” said Philip Yates, head of European corporate banking at Merrill Lynch in London.

A survey released by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Confederation of British Industry found banks are the most upbeat they’ve been since December, 1999, about the outlook for business over the next quarter.