Most middle-market business owners are surprised when they learn how active professional buyers are in the U.S. The misconception that I find all too common is that the recession killed M&A activity and that it has yet to recover. I think we have put most of that myth to rest in past articles we have published about today’s market being a seller’s market, M&A activity being up 30% and a number of synergistic private equity add-on acquisitions. But what really surprises people is just how active strategics are in today’s market. Most of these deals get very little publicity since they usually are not billion-dollar mega-deals. Buyouts recently analyzed the most active strategic buyers since January of 2010. [Read more…]