Sales of investment management companies worldwide this year have eclipsed previous records even amid turbulent capital markets, and M&A activity is expected to stay strong in 2008, driven by strategy and necessity. Through to mid-November 2007, buyers of asset management firms spent more than $46.7 billion in 208 transactions worldwide, according to preliminary data from New York-based Jefferies Putnam Lovell. By contrast, for the full year 2006, there were 192 asset management transactions, and the disclosed and estimated deal value reached $44.1 billion. In 2007, key trends in asset management dealmaking have been initial public offerings by alternative and traditional firms – seven IPOs thus far this year, representing 15 per cent of total IPO deal value in 2007 – and cross-border transactions, which counted for approximately 40 per cent of both the total number of deals announced and of the total amount of assets acquired. "Long-term strategic concerns, amplified by the subprime-related fallout in the financial sector, will continue to stimulate deal flow in asset management during 2008," said Ben Phillips, managing director and head of strategic analysis at Putnam Lovell. "Companies emerging unscathed from the current crisis will seek to press their advantage and expand through acquisitions. Asset managers are the family jewels some financial firms may sell to pay for their credit excesses." With approximately six weeks remaining in 2007, deal volume will continue to climb, but the total amount of assets acquired is likely to fall short of the record total of $2.6 trillion set in 2006, Mr Phillips said. Last year's total featured the two largest transactions in asset management history - Bank of New York's acquisition of Mellon Financial and BlackRock's purchase of Merrill Lynch Investment Managers - totalling $1.5 trillion in managed assets. Through mid-November 2007, the amount of assets acquired totalled $1.8 trillion. Founded in 1987, Putnam Lovell operates from offices in New York, San Francisco, Boston, and London. Since July 2007, the firm has been a division of Jefferies & Company, the global investment bank and institutional securities firm, headquartered in New York.