LAST year was a record year for acquisitions, with Irish companies

£1.5 acquiring over billion worth of businesses and foreign companies obtaining over £500 million worth of businesses owned by Irish companies.

At this stage it seems unlikely that this staggering rate, of corporate activity will be maintained into 1996 as the £2 billion plus figure last year is distorted to some extent by, a small number of very large deals that are unlikely to be matched this year.

Indeed, over two thirds off the £500 million plus purchases of Irish owned companies were accounted for by the £219 million sale of Aer Lingus's, Copthorne hotel chain in Britain and the Statoil £198 million takeover of Aran Energy. Otherwise the biggest takeovers of Irish owned companies were in the £20 30 million range.

The biggest spending, if not necessarily the biggest single purchase, was by Independent Newspapers, which spent over £200 million in building up substantial stakes in Wilson & Horton in New Zealand, Argus in South Africa, and, Newspaper Publishing in Britain.

Expect further corporate activity in 1996 from Independent probably involving the purchase of the O'Reilly Trust's 22 per cent stake in Australian Provincial Newspapers.

The biggest single deal in 1995 was the £147.5 million sterling acquisition of Geest banana business by Fyffes/ Wibdeco. The most spent on a single deal by a wholly Irish company was the £125 million by Waterford Foods for The Cheese Company in Britain.

Food companies are likely to be relatively inactive this year with Kerry and Waterford consolidating their big acquisitions of the past two years. But both groups have indicated that 1997 will see them back in a financial position to do some more substantial deals.

Any major acquisitions in the food industry this year are likely to come from the two commodity groups, IAWS and, Greencore, and the three other large dairy groups, Avonmore, Golden Vale and Dairygold.

Indeed, IAWS is thought to be leading the bidding for the Williams Waller agribusiness group, with Avonmore expected to buy some of the Williams Waller stores.

Greencore has a balance sheet that will allow a major deal the problem will be to find the big acquisition that" eluded Mr Gerry Murphy for three years. If Mr David Dilger can find that big acquisition for Greencore, it will be a major achievement.

The first big deal of 1996 will probably come with the long drawn out acquisition of Lyons Irish Holdings, a deal that may involve distribution group Allegro paying a net £50 million for the tea and doughnuts group. This is likely to be followed by a stock market flotation by Allegro.

Smurfit is likely to continue, making medium sized (by its scale) acquisitions while it will be a major surprise if CRH is, not active again CRH was involved in six separate deals" worth £86 million last year.

Among the financials, most speculation will be on if and when AIB will make a major acquisition in the US. Back of Ireland will probably focus on broadening its base in Britain with a mortgage lender, such as that acquired by First National in 1994, seen as one likely target.