Any casual observer glancing at the headlines which dominated the financial pages over the past couple of weeks would probably conclude that mergers & acquisitions are back on the corporate agenda.

US food group Kraft's £10.2bn (€11.1bn) tilt for UK confectioner Cadbury and the announcement of a joint venture between the UK subsidiaries of Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom sparked expectations that dealmaking would follow the debt and equities markets into recovery after a sustained hiatus.