Zephyr: Making M&A Searching a Breeze

Zephyr is a database describing worldwide Merger and Acquisition (M&A),  IPO, and Private Equity deals. Currently the file contains more than 1.1 million completed, announced and rumored deals.

A typical M&A search combines variables for geography, time period, deal type, and deal value. Creating customized reports for such deals is easy on Zephyr.

In the following example, we are searching for the largest 50 (ranked by value of deal) M&A acquisitions completed by public U.S. companies in the past 5 years.

Clicking on the circled items will show menus with additional details. For example, the menu for “Deal Type” will display scores of options for deal types, sub-deal types, methods of payment, and financing.

Here are the variables chosen for our example:

Company Status => Listed or Delisted
Deal Type => Acquisition
Deal Status=> Completed
Geography => USA
Time Period => Last 5 years
Deal Value => Largest 50

Click on View List of Deals for a spreadsheet view of the results. Modify the default data columns by adding variables from a menu of hundreds of deal related company and financial items.

In-depth reports for individual deals can be displayed as well. Here is the record for the Wells Fargo acquisition of Wachovia.

There are many other options for report writing on Zephyr. You can create:

• Advisor League Tables
• Company League Tables
• Volume and Value (Segments) Tables
• Deal Multiples Summary Tables
• Analysis of Deal Financing Tables

To see an index of these reports and an explanation of how to create them. Click:

Help => Zephyr Help

Here is an example of an industry segment report of the “50 largest deals.” To create this report, click on “Launch Wizard” and choose “Volume and Value tables.”

Zephyr is one of a suite of databases produced by the Bureau van Dijk (BvD) company. One advantage of searching Zephyr is that it links directly to the 100 million plus company records of the BvD database suite. This feature enables you to click on an acquirer or target name to see greater detail about the company’s finances, operations and management. A Zephyr search will link to records from, for example, the OSIRIS database for worldwide listed corporations, BankScope for worldwide banks, and ISIS, for insurance companies.  An added value is the availability, often in native languages, of the annual reports of many of the public companies involved in M&A.

For more information on researching mergers and acquisitions see our M&A Research Guide, our Business FAQ and our previous posts: Big Deal: Bloomberg’s M&A Database and I heard it through the Grape Vine – Sources for M&A Rumors.