July 6 (Bloomberg) -- Companies buying and selling assets since the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. have outperformed competitors that haven’t engaged in mergers and acquisitions, according to a report.

They beat competitors by more than 6 percent based on share price performance, a joint study by consulting firm Towers Perrin and the U.K.’s Cass Business School said today. U.S. companies that bought and sold assets performed best, with a higher return than all non-U.S. peers, the report said.

“It is looking increasingly grim,” said Marco Boschetti, head of global M&A at Towers Perrin in London, in an interview. “We are seeing a huge number of deals in the pipeline and there are lots of companies doing the diligence. What’s missing is the confidence to pull the trigger at the last moment.”

Companies are delaying acquisitions as the recession erodes sales and the credit crisis blocks debt financing for takeovers. Companies announced $759 billion of takeovers in the first half, a 44 percent drop from 2008, data compiled by Bloomberg shows.

The collapse of New York-based securities firm Lehman Brothers, which in September filed the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history, raised corporate borrowing costs to the highest level since at least 1999, according to indexes compiled by Merrill Lynch & Co. That limited the appetite of companies for mergers and acquisitions and jeopardized the ability of some to repay maturing debt.

Healthcare companies engaging in M&A outperformed rivals by about 14 percent, followed by 9.3 percent for technology firms and 7.3 percent for energy companies, the study found.

Patent Expiry

Drugmakers have been active dealmakers this year, with Pfizer Inc.’s $64.2 billion takeover of Wyeth still the biggest acquisition announced in 2009. The world’s largest drugmakers have about $100 billion in cash as they seek to replace $84 billion in sales from products nearing the end of their patent life.

On average, dealmakers showed negative shareholder return of about 26 percent compared with about 32 percent for the rest of the market.

The Towers Perrin and Cass study looked at 204 completed transactions, each valued at over $100 million, between Sept. 15 last year and May 31.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ambereen Choudhury in London at achoudhury@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: July 6, 2009 04:14 EDT