Irish companies were involved in acquisitions worth almost €2.7 billion while there were takeovers of Irish companies worth €4.3 billion this year, according to figures compiled by The Irish Times.

At a first glance, these figures are well below the €9 billion acquisitions by Irish companies and the €10 billion spent on Irish acquisitions by overseas companies in 2000. But those 2000 figures were distorted by a small number of very large acquisitions, notably Vodafone's €4.5 billion takeover of Eircell, BT's €2.4 billion acquisition of Esat and Elan's €2.1 billion acquisition of Dura Pharmaceuticals. And in 2000, there were some 20 deals worth between €100 million and €1 billion.

In contrast, 2001 saw only one acquisition worth in excess of €1 billion, Valentia's €3 billion takeover of Eircom and there were just nine deals in the €100 million-€1 billion range. That reduced activity is partly down to the sharply reduced activity in the technology sector as dot.com turned into dot.bomb.

But even in what might be described as the more traditional industries, corporate activity was sharply reduced despite the record low level of interest rates.

In previous years, Elan - the largest company on the Irish stock market - featured regularly in the M&A tables. This past year has been one of consolidation for the pharmaceutical giant, but there is a strong belief in some quarters that Elan will be back on the takeover trail in the coming year.

CRH has always featured prominently in the M&A tables. But while the past year has not seen any blockbuster-type deals by the building materials group, CRH was still involved in some 46 acquisitions worth in excess of €600 million.

The biggest single takeover by an Irish company was Kerry's €398 million (inclusive of assumed debt) takeover of Golden Vale.

This was the deal which, arguably, caused the most surprise during the year, as it marked a return by Kerry to big investment in consumer foods acquisitions. It probably also reflected the shortage of billion euro-plus acquisition opportunities in food ingredients - the main focus of the group's corporate activity in recent years.

Apart from Golden Vale, Kerry also spent €300 million on ten smaller acquisitions, mainly in its ingredients business.

Entrepreneur Denis O'Brien was an active investor in a host of ventures, but the one which probably grabbed the most publicity was his €60 million purchase of the PGA European Tour golf course group.

Possibly one of the biggest private deals was John Reihill's buyout of the 50 per cent of Tedcastle Holdings owned by other members of the Reihill family.

Apart from the Valentia takeover of Eircom after a bitter takeover battle with Denis O'Brien's e-Island group, the most active buyer of Irish companies was the German pharmaceutical giant Gehe, which was involved in deals worth in excess of €135 million. The biggest of these, the €100 million takeover of Unicare has been referred to the Competition Authority, but Gehe has laid out its stall in no uncertain fashion.

In the financial sector, the main deals were Rabobank's €165 million takeover of ACCBank - a move that brought the curtain down on state involvement in Irish banking - and Royal Liver's move into the Irish market with the €173 million acquisition of Irish Life's industrial branch business.

This means that Royal Liver has spent in excess of €300 million buying Irish assets over the past 12 months.