UK companies spent £12.1 billion in overseas acquisitions in the final three months of last year - well up on the £7.5 billion in the third quarter, official figures showed yesterday.
The latest figure is the highest since the first quarter of 2003 and was flattered by UK chemical group INEOS' buy of Innovene, a US petrochemical firm, for £5 billion, according to the Office of National Statistics.
The amount spent by foreign companies on acquisitions in the UK also rose in the last three months of 2005, reaching £15.2 billion from £13.8 billion in the third quarter of last year. The figure was the highest since the height of the dot com boom five years ago, when foreign companies splashed out a record £38.2 billion.
One significant transaction was Saint-Gobain acquiring plasterboard maker BPB for £3.9 billion.
But analysts say that deal could easily be dwarfed if the bid talk still surrounding takeover targets Scottish Power and Centrica bears fruit, given their combined stock market value of almost £25 billion.
Industrial gases supplier BOC has been the focus of a £7.6 billion takeover offer from German rival Linde and some sector specialists say a fresh approach could be on the way.
UK ports and ferries group P&O is still the target of a £3.9 billion bid-ding war, while Lloyds TSB Group, with a stock market value of more than £29 billion, has also been cited as the focus of interest from European buyers in the last two weeks.
Within the UK, domestic companies spent a decreasing amount on acquisitions, with the amount spent falling to £5 billion from £7.2 billion in the third quarter.
The largest transaction was the acquisition of Coral Eurobet by Gala Group for a sum in the region of £2 billion.
