Pacific Railway’s bid for rival Norfolk Southern Corp. on Tuesday would be the biggest ever Canadian acquisition in the United States, and lifted this year's Canada-U.S. M&A activity to $104.1 billion, surpassing all other years.
The week's next biggest M&A deal was a $13.4 billion tie-up between France’s Air Liquide and U.S. peer Airgas.
Those deals pushed worldwide announced takeover deals above $4 trillion this year for only the second time in history, after the record M&A year of 2007, according to Thomson Reuters data.
They also helped take the number of deals worth more than $5 billion above the previous record of 125 from eight years ago.
U.S. banks Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan have all advised on deals worth more than $1 trillion, the data showed.
(Reporting by Steve Slater; Editing by Mark Potter)
