Merger and acquisition activity is still going strong despite the ripple effect that's been going through global markets thanks to the economic turmoil in China. In fact, August marked a divergence for the M&A market from past summers, as historically, summertime has been slow. August M&A at strongest level in history The folks at Merrill DataSite and Mergermarket report that August marked the strongest August they have seen since they started tracking M&A activity with 952 global deals worth $297.8 billion. They report that the value of global M&A activities rose 12.7% year over year, as August 2014 brought 1,287 deals with a total value of $254.3 billion. So far this year, Mergermarket has recorded 7,863 deals worth $2.5 trillion, which was the highest value of the first eight months of the year since 2007 when the group saw 10,836 deals worth a cumulative $2.7 trillion in the first eight months of the year. This year's first eight months was also the second highest eight months by value in the history of Mergermarket. Buyouts running strong There were 102 buyouts worth $46.9 billion globally in August, with that total deal value marking an 89.1% year over year increase... More