The popular idea now is that the Golden Era of private equity has ended. And with that comes the notion that strategic buyers will reassert themselves. It makes a lot of sense. Many companies have been hoarding cash, and that can be used as currency. Remember that all-stock deals can be structured as tax-free swaps. Financial Week offers a list of companies with a lot of buying power built up. ExxonMobil, for example, holds 2.4 billion shares of its own stock, with a market value $200 billion which would be enough to buy top competitors. If we see this emerge as a trend, it will hearken back to the previous deal boom, back in the 1999-2000 period, when stock swaps were all the rage. Cash deals will have a hard time, and you can count on the percentage of sponsor-backed deals to fall from the 40 percent it hit in the second quarter.  

For more:
- here's the article from Financial Week