What is the percentage of announced Merger & Acquistion deals actually completed?

Question

I am assuming that not all M&A deals announced are completed. There are factors such as anti trust laws and consumer protection agencies that legally prohibit the two companies from completing the M&A. Statistically, what is the percentage of completed M&A deals to announced M&A deals . Please provide reference if possible

Answer 1

Unfortunately most failed M&A deals are not recorded, and they die behind closed doors in private setting.

If you'd like statistics on M&A enforcement, I recommend you look at reported statistics from Harvard:

https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2017/06/01/2017-ma-report/

Answer 2

In my experience with multiple M&A projects, to fully understand Merger & Acquisition (M&A) success and failure, a business needs to demonstrate sophisticated competencies in the areas of: corporate finance/accounting; customer analysis; operations management; organizational development principles, including change management. The complexities of bringing two or more organizational systems together cannot be understated! A Harvard Business Review (2016) states that as much as 90% of M&A activity results in failure (https://hbr.org/2016/05/so-many-ma-deals-fail-because-companies-overlook-this-simple-strategy). More recently, Investopedia (2018), stated that "Many research studies conducted over the decades clearly show that the rate of failures is at least 50 percent." (https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/111014/top-reasons-why-ma-deals-fail.asp).