Methodology

All data are as of December 15. The totals for mergers and acquisitions and venture capital are based on announced value, with non-U.S. dollar values converted to U.S. dollars at the time of announcement. Mergers and acquisitions data include asset sales. Withdrawn and terminated deals are excluded. Bloomberg counts acquisitions as all transactions involving public or private companies where at least 5% of the equity of a target company is acquired. All acquisitions made by a fund are credited to the parent of that fund. For example, in the chart showing the companies that announced the most acquisitions in 2015, purchases of buildings and real-estate assets made by CBRE Global Investors were counted as acquisitions for CBRE.

Total equity offerings include both initial and additional offerings. IPO data are aggregated by effective year and exclude closed-end and country funds, REITs, special-purpose entities, and specified-purpose acquisition companies.

Wealth is based on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, which monitors the world's highest-net-worth individuals and how their fortunes change on a daily basis. Data for hedge funds' strategies are based on Bloomberg's active indices for funds; overall performance comes from Bloomberg's market-capitalization weighted index of hedge funds domiciled globally.