The ever-increasing size of international mergers and acquistions is lengthening the time between announcement and completion of deals in both Europe and the US, according to a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers.

A survey released by PricewaterhouseCoopers' transaction services claims that between 1996 and 2000, the average time required by European companies to complete a deal increased by 39 days to an average of 108 days. Over the same period the 50 largest European deals required a completion period which was on average 10 times longer than for the next-largest 50 deals.