Last month I attended the inaugural “Dealmakers of the Year Awards” at Scott’s restaurant in London. The event, hosted by IntraLinks with the support of the Mergermarket Group, celebrated the achievements of M&A practitioners who have excelled in their field during the past 12 months in spite the financial crisis and its dramatic effect on global M&A deal volumes.

Short listing for the event was undertaken independently by mergermarket using the mergermarket.com M&A deals database which tracks transactions where the value is greater than €5m. Financial advisors and lawyers qualified on the basis of advice given on transactions to UK-based corporations, targets, vendors and acquirers. Selection was based on both the total volume and value of deals advised on.

Recently, Forrester Consulting completed a thought leadership study called “Trends, Challenges, and Technology Use in a Changing M&A Environment”. Forrester took a look at over 200 M&A professionals to try and understand how strategies were shifting and what the top priorities were for these folks facing a rapidly changing market.

While most survey participants were familiar and comfortable with leveraging technology, specifically virtual data rooms, for key parts of the process — the bottom line is that the perception and approach to M&A has changed fundamentally. The mentality of “growth in perpetuity” is gone, and deals are being viewed with increasing scrutiny. While deals seem to be back on the rise, companies are seeking to buy only what’s necessary and only at the right price. In other words, no one’s going to tolerate a mediocre acquisition — they have to be strategic and have clear immediate value for the company.

Like many of those involved in the M&A market, I started the new decade thinking that things could only get better after recent economic challenges, and it appears that there are grounds for optimism.

Last month we began our Lunch and Learn webcast series.  The idea behind these is to drive some education around the elements of our IntraLinks platform that people are less familiar with.  On April 7th I will be discussing how our Q&A functionality can make everyone’s life easier.  Last month we dove int

At the end of last month I flew to Düsseldorf to attend the first of this year’s IntraLinks sponsored mergermarket M&A, Private Equity and Restructuring forums. Attended by over 200 delegates from across Germany, the event provided a fine array of speakers from some of the leading firms specializing in M&A and Private Equity.