THERE were fewer mergers and acquisitions in the UK during the first half of the year, according to a survey.

Business information group Experian reported a 15% fall in the number of deals to 1,978 during the first six months of the year compared with 2,316 for the same period in 2010.

The value of transactions was 7% up at £101.8bn against £95.6bn last time.

Rothschild was the best performing financial advisor by volume with 46 deals, while Citigroup was the highest by value with deals worth £23.3bn.

DLA Piper advised on the highest number of transactions at 53 while the leading legal advisor by value was Linklaters with deals worth £21.3bn.

The majority of the UK’s deals during HY11 were with the USA, followed by Germany.

In the USA, volumes were down by 37% while values were up by 20% compared to the first half of 2010.

Asia Pacific saw declines in both volume and value by 17% and 12% respectively.

Experian business development manager Wendy Smith said: “The first half of 2011 shows that there is still a degree of tentativeness in the market.

“This is further impacted by the fact that there are fewer business insolvencies to create opportunities and liquidity in the market and – to some extent – the fact that vendors still have high expectations on price.

“The North West and Wales are the only areas that appear to be bucking the trend at the moment, with both seeing slight increases in the volume of deals.

“Looking across Europe and the rest of the world, around a third of the companies involved in deals are based outside the UK, so it is very much a global market place.

“It is not surprising that the low activity can be seen across the board.

“Nonetheless, we are in a more optimistic place than we were in a year ago and – as increasing numbers of businesses begin to focus once again on strategic growth rather than cost-cutting – we would anticipate a small rise in deal volumes in the coming year.”