MidCap Advisors has been retained by The Keyword Group, a prominent Italian company, to identify and negotiate one or more strategic acquisitions for them in the United States over the next twelve months.  The Keyword Group is representative of many strategic buyers, both domestic and international, who view the current market disruption as an opportunity to build market share through acquisition and generate superior returns. 

As pointed out in our December 2008 newsletter, the average performance of the weak-economy acquisitions is markedly better than that of the strong-economy deals. A study by the Boston Consulting Group showed that after two years, the total shareholder return for weak-economy deals was 14.5% greater than that of the strong-economy mergers. In addition, weak-economy mergers are twice as likely to produce larger returns overall. The same study showed that 13.5% of weak-economy mergers produced two-year returns in excess of 50%, while only 7.4% of strong-economy mergers did so.