Wealthmonitor, which tracks data of liquidity events, gives its latest figures on how much money was created by Western European firms from their various M&A and IPO episodes in 2014.

New wealth generated for owners of Western European-based firms from mergers and takeovers and other events such as IPOs stood at £48.923 billion ($74.5 billion) last year, down from £55.462 billion in 2013, although owners in different countries experienced varying fortunes.

Data from Wealthmonitor, a firm tracking liquidity events, showed that internet, consumer software and industrial sectors accounted for the top three for generating new money.

The data tracks the owners of such European firms by where they live. For example, UK-based owners of Western European firms enjoyed £15.247 billion of new wealth in 2014, versus £12.556 billion a year earlier. In Germany last year, some £6.071 billion of new wealth was produced by liquidity events of various kinds, compared with £5.292 billion in 2013.

Among other figures, Wealthmonitor said that last year the top 10 countries for beneficiaries of new wealth accounted for 88.9 per cent of the total produced, at £43.502 billion. As far as the number of newly enriched persons is concerned, there were a total of 10,968 such persons last year.

Chinese shareholders of such firms logged £5.867 billion of new wealth created last year, versus £10.961 billion in 2013.

The average amount of new wealth per person created last year was £6.6 million; in the top 10 countries, the average was £8.37 million, although the average figures will conceal considerable actual variation.
 
The second quarter of last year was a strong one for creating new wealth, when a total of £13.5 billion was made, Wealthmonitor said.

To explain its methodology, Wealthmonitor said liquidity events are based on deals with a minimum of £200,000 per transaction; if a company deal value isn’t disclosed then Wealthmonitor uses an implied equity value estimate for the target firm; tracked firms are headquartered in Western Europe with no restrictions on shareholders’ location. Shareholder data is based on public registers.