Fears that corporate Britain is on course for a full-blown sell-out to foreign buyers look misplaced, as new figures out today show British-based companies tabling takeover bids worth nearly £116 billion in the first five months of the year.

The numbers, compiled by Mergermarket for The Times, show British companies trying to pull off merger and acquisition deals worth 2½ times the value of deals being sought by foreign companies in the UK.

The value of offers made by British companies, both at home and abroad, marks a huge surge in activity from the same period of 2006, when only £46 billion of offers were made, and a near-threefold improvement in the value of offers in the first five months of 2004.

Overseas bidders made £46 billion-worth of offers for British companies between January 1 and May 21, this year.

The UK figures include a string of high-profile deals, including Barclays’ £45 billion offer for ABN Amro, Voda-fone’s £7 billion acquisition of a two-thirds stake in Hutchison Essar, of India, and Terra Firma’s £2.4 billion deal to buy EMI.

Concern over an influx of foreign bidding activity has been fuelled in recent years by Tata Steel’s acquisition of Corus, the sale of P&O to the Dubai-based DP World, and Linde, of Germany, buying BOC, the former FTSE 100 gases group.

While the value of offers by British companies has rocketed, the figures show that the number of offers made has fallen, implying a significant increase in the typical deal value. About 500 offers were made in the first part of 2007, equivalent to an average of £232 million per deal. The typical offer was worth £85 million in the first part of 2006.

Private equity firms and trade buyers have played a leading role in the flurry of activity. The private equity industry has a glut of cash, swollen by debt, to spend on investments, encouraged by relatively low interest rates. Trade buyers are benefiting from strong cash-flows.

Consolidation in the mining and utilities industries is likely to be a key driver of mergers and aquisition activity in coming months.

Overseas companies have also played a leading role in driving M&A volumes. The value of offers by foreign firms for UK companies was nearly four times the value of offers made in the same period of 2004.

The value of cross-border deals was bloated by Thomson’s recent £8.7 billion deal to merge with Reuters, the news and financial information group, and an £8 billion offer from HeidelbergCement, of Germany, for Hanson, the building materials group.

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