The global mergers-and-acquisitions scene has come back in a healthy way, and some might say that the preliminary agreement between Anheuser-Busch InBev and SABMiller is simply the froth on the top of the M&A beer glass. The question on the tips of many CEOs’ tongues, however, is whether these events represent opportunities that won’t last and that they should take advantage of. The preliminary agreement between Anheuser-Busch InBev and SABMiller on a $104-billion merger came just a day after Dell said it would buy EMC for $67 billion in the biggest-ever tech-industry takeover. Those deals helped put 2015 on pace for a record $400 billion in mergers worldwide, which would surpass 2007, the last year of hot activity before the global financial collapse and Great Recession froze everything. Even before either of those megadeals, the global M&A market was on pace to hit the highest levels on record, with $3.2 trillion worth of deals through mid-September, up 29% from the year-earlier period, according to Dealogic. And a recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers said that 54% of U.S. CEOs intended to consummate an acquisition this year. “The urge to merge is still greater than fears about the global economy,” a Fortune writer observed. And the current dealmaking activity “has pushed the price tag for acquisitions up as well.” The food and beverage industry has been the M&A leader to date, with $127.5 billion in deals in that sector this year, excluding the beer companies merger, Dealogic said, up 32% from 2014. Across sectors, trends fueling the current merger fever include the fact that some Fortune 500 companies, as well as venture capitalists, have been sitting on record amounts of cash for a few years—a number that has been rumored to equal $2 trillion—while companies seek the right places to deploy all […]