According to merger and acquisition (M&A) intelligence service mergermarket, Asia-Pacific announced US$397bn worth of merger and acquisition (M&A) deals in 2010, up 38.4% from 2009 and the busiest year on record. Deal count was also up by 20.8%. This trend has not passed unnoticed by Ketchum which is seeing increased M&A activity, particularly by Chinese companies. Mergermarket’s latest League Tables of PR Advisors to Asia- Pacific M&A’s (excluding Japan) published in January showed that Ketchum’s ranking had jumped from 59th to 10th in 2010 over 2009 as measured by cumulative deal value. Ketchum also jumped from 30th to 19th in the rankings for deal volume in 2010. Over the past year Ketchum has provided PR support to a series of overseas and domestic acquisitions for our Chinese clients. With an established financial communications team backed by an extensive global network, Ketchum makes a logical partner for M&A PR support. With an increasing number of overseas M&A deals being made by Chinese companies, we will be looking to further our ranking placement in the year ahead.