I recently returned from Mexico where I presented at an event that was co-sponsored and co-hosted by IntraLinks and mergermarket. The purpose of the event was to discuss the importance of Mexico as an emerging participant in the global economy and the maturing M&A and corporate finance activity with more than 100 bankers, lawyers, corporate development professionals, and executives.

During the event, Miguel Messmacher, Mexico’s Chief Economist and Secretary of Treasury and Public Credit, discussed the increase in M&A deals and IPOs among the nation’s companies, and that the increasing diversity across industries is a key factor behind the highest economic growth that Mexico has ever experienced. The IntraLinks Dealflow Indicator reinforces these comments, having found that Mexico’s M&A deal activity grew 35% in 2010 over 2009. As Messmacher discussed Mexico’s current economic situation and the important steps they are undertaking to become a more globalized nation, it was exciting to think that a platform like IntraLinks could help them transform their M&A activities and improve their global deal flow. By giving companies the ability to manage more deals, IntraLinks is ideally positioned to enable companies to further capitalize on positive, overall growth in global deal activity.

As the economy begins to recover, European mergers and acquisitions (M&A) enjoy a busy start to the year, fueling forecasts of a bounce back in deal volume terms. To find out what the leading M&A professionals expect to be the predominant deal making trends of 2011, I attended the first IntraLinks and mergermarket breakfast event in the new series entitled ‘Securing Growth in 2011: The Changing Face of M&A’.

Held at London’s Andaz Hotel, in the heart of the City, it attracted over 80 attendees, who were keen to learn more about the M&A trends for 2011. The discussion was chaired by Catherine Ford, Managing Editor - Remark, The Mergermarket Group and the panel consisted of Martin Ashcroft, Managing Director, Brunner Mond Group; James Stewart, Partner, ECI Partners LLP; Stephen Wilkinson, Partner, Corporate, Herbert Smith LLP and Philip Whitchelo, VP Product Marketing - M&A, IntraLinks.

Relax.  Don’t freak out. Things in the M&A market are good.  In fact, they’re still very good.  We released our latest quarterly Deal Flow Indicator (DFI) and year end DFI results today.  Overall, 2010 was a big winner, showing a tremendous rebound from the doldrums of late 2008 and early 2009 that were brought on by the global financial crisis. The 2010 deal flow was up 33% from 2009. However, it’s unrealistic to expect that the numbers will continue to go up infinitely at every increment that you measure them. After six quarters of double digit sequential growth, the positive quarterly trends came to an end in Q4 2010. But it is a small correction, a mere three percent down in the M&A deal market that we observed in Q4 as an indicator heading into Q1 2011.

Obviously, the main event in South Africa last year was the football World Cup. Although being English I’d rather forget about that and talk about a more recent event – The M&A breakfast briefing that IntraLinks and mergermarket hosted at the end of November. Held in the Michelangelo Hotel in Johannesburg, the event, titled “South African M&A: The Gateway into Africa”, brought together around 130 senior figures from the South African M&A community to listen to a panel of speakers discuss the key issues affecting activity in the region.

Moderating the briefing was the local mergermarket bureau chief Peter Cromberge, he was joined by Craig Forbes from the Corporate Finance Team at RMB, Kevin Cron director of corporate M&A at the law firm Deneys Reitz, Brad Webber joint head of M&A at Standard Bank and Philip Whitchelo the head of M&A strategy here at IntraLinks.

We recently released our latest quarterly Deal Flow Indicator (DFI), which shows further positive trends in the M&A deal market during Q3 2010. The DFI reports a continuing upward trend in deal activity since the first quarter of last year, with Q3 2010 deal activity up by 68% over the Q1 2009 low point. With the exception of the slow growth observed in Q1 of this year (two percent), deal activity has been steadily rising by an average 10% per quarter since Q1 2009.