Following President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, he appointed the then-Commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Ajit Pai as the Commission’s Chairman. Pai has served as Commissioner since his appointment by President Obama in 2012, however industry experts predict that Pai’s new role as Chairman spells a positive outlook for M&A in the telecoms sector.

Sky has reached an agreement on the terms of a full takeover from Rupert Murdoch’s 21^st Century Fox. The deal has been met with controversy since rumours first began circulating, however both parties have now agreed that Fox will pay £11.7bn for the 61 per cent stake in Sky that it does not already own, valuing the FTSE 100 company at £19bn. The acquisition will combine Fox’s film and television influence with Sky’s European distribution powers.

Despite economic and political uncertainty across the globe in 2016, the year remained one of the most active for M&A deals. According to data collected by Dealogic, the value of the average deal in 2016 was $104.2m which, despite being slightly down on 2015’s average of $115.4m, was significantly greater than the average deals made between 2000 and 2014 at $77.1m. Here, we take a look at the biggest transactions that contributed to a successful year of deal making in 2016.

In the last week of October alone, five multi-billion dollar deals contributed to an unprecedented month of mega deals for M&A. In particular, renewed confidence in the US economy has buoyed deal activity, despite the impending presidential election, with over half a trillion dollars’ worth of deals announced globally last month.

Author Terry Pratchett once said, “A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on.” Nowhere is this truer than in the world of mergers and acquisitions. The potential buy-out of Twitter by Disney has been the subject of much rumour and this article looks at their veracity as well as examining other suitors that may be eyeing the micro-blogging site.

Media M&A has picked up significantly over the last few years in line with the structural changes to the industry. With the increasing development of technology that is now readily available to consumers has come a growing appetite to digest media through a number of channels.

As one of the world’s largest companies and home to what is arguably the most successful consumer electrical product of all time, Apple which has forged a name as a technology giant, comfortably sits on a cash stockpile of $233bn. So, what does a company in this position do to continue on their path to technology and media world dominance? Recent rumours have surfaced that Apple is seeking to expand their empire through the acquisition of original content, breaking specifically into the television market.

Over the last few years, television has gradually lost its dominance as a source of entertainment, news and information. Viewers, and in particular the millennial generation, are now looking to digital platforms to access their favourite television shows, films, news broadcasts and sports fixtures. With this, television sets are slowly but surely becoming a thing of the past, as viewers increasingly turn to laptops, tablets and other mobile devices.