European Companies Hunt for Growth With $53 Billion Acquisition Spree

(Bloomberg) -- Europe Inc. has been on an acquisition tear, with luxury purveyor LVMH and drugmaker Novartis AG becoming the latest companies to seek growth through splashy purchases overseas.

Buyers from the continent have announced $58 billion of takeovers globally this month, more than triple the same period last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That makes it the busiest November since 2015. More than half the deal volume came from purchases of U.S. companies, compared with 37% from western European targets, the data show.

LVMH announced Monday it will acquire Tiffany & Co. for $16.2 billion, expanding its presence in jewelry with the largest luxury-goods deal ever. The transaction came just hours after Novartis said it would buy Parsippany, New Jersey-based Medicines Co. for $9.7 billion to get its hands on a blockbuster cholesterol drug.

Completing the European hat trick on Monday, Geneva-based ticket reseller Viagogo is buying rival StubHub from EBay Inc. for $4.05 billion in a play for a share of the U.S. market.

“We are at a stage in the cycle where European corporates have strong balance sheets,” said Kyril Courboin, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s French business. “They increasingly use this firepower to make acquisitions in the U.S. market.”

In a highly unstable global environment, the U.S. also offers a single market with massive scale, a supportive economy and a pro-business environment, Courboin said. Last week, France’s Cie de Saint-Gobain agreed to buy drywall maker Continental Building Products Inc. for $1.4 billion including debt to boost its presence in growing regions of the U.S.

“Cash-rich companies are targeting global players in the U.S. as a key market for expansion,” said Luigi de Vecchi, chairman of Citigroup Inc.’s banking, capital markets and advisory business for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “‎We shall continue to see more cross-border flows into the U.S.”

Aroundtown SA reached a deal to acquire TLG Immobilien AG for 3.1 billion euros ($3.4 billion) in stock to create Germany’s biggest commercial landlord. Meanwhile, a bidding war is looming for Madrid bourse operator Bolas y Mercados Espanoles SA, after Switzerland’s SIX Group AG made a $3.1 billion offer and Euronext NV said it’s in talks for its own bid.

The recent flurry of activity is helping overall deal volumes on the continent recover after they fell 33% in the first half of the year to the lowest level in six years. European M&A is now down 15% from the same period a year earlier to $783 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

More big deals are slated to come before year-end. Irish flavorings maker Kerry Group Plc is conducting due diligence on a potential takeover of DuPont de Nemours Inc.’s $25 billion nutrition unit, Bloomberg News has reported. Assicurazioni Generali SpA is also preparing to make a formal bid in December for most of MetLife Inc.’s European operations, people with knowledge of the matter have said.

U.S. companies have also been active, with retail stockbroker Charles Schwab Corp. saying Monday it will buy rival TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. in a $26 billion transaction. That helped make this the busiest “Merger Monday” in nearly six months, with at least $71 billion of M&A transactions announced since Sunday. The last time it was this hectic at the start of a week was June 10, when companies announced $117 billion of acquisitions led by United Technologies Corp.’s purchase of Raytheon Co.

--With assistance from Ben Scent, Aaron Kirchfeld and Liana Baker.

To contact the reporters on this story: Myriam Balezou in London at mbalezou@bloomberg.net;Dinesh Nair in London at dnair5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Scent at bscent@bloomberg.net, Michael Hytha

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