2014 is the year of Mergers & Acquisitions roaring back in a big way.
And this morning's news of a proposed $80 billion deal between 21st Century Fox and Time Warner is yet another massive announcement in a year that saw seen the highest first-half volume of announced merger activity since 2007.
On June 30, we highlighted this chart from Goldman Sachs that showed M&A activity had hit $750 billion through the end of June, an annualized rate of about $1.5 trillion, on track for the most since 2007.
Goldman Sachs
Of course there's no guarantee that this deal will ever happen, here's some perspective on how the above chart might be updated in light of the latest news.
Goldman Sachs
In just the last two days, more than $100 billion in M&A has been announced.
In addition to the Time Warner deal, yesterday tobacco giant Reynolds American announced a deal to acquire Lorillard in a deal worth $27.4 billion.
And these deals are in addition to a number of smaller, but still large, deals that have been announced just this month.
Tyson Foods is acquiring Hillshire Brands in a deal worth $8.55 billion, and engineering firm AECOM is acquiring URS Corporation in a $4 billion deal.