Crisis watch.

Byline: Andrew McNulty

Crisis watch It almost seems like old times. The deals and bids are coming thick and fast. Japan's NTT is taking out Dimension Data, the JSE's biggest IT company. Last week the world's biggest miner, BHP Billiton, announced a US$40bn hostile bid for Canada's Potash Corp, the world's biggest producer of the raw material used in fertiliser. This week HSBC confirmed it is in exclusive talks to buy up to 70% of Nedcor.

These are all large deals and, even if the second two do not succeed, they can be seen in the context of a global recovery in mergers and acquisitions activity. The pace of dealmaking is still nowhere near the levels reached before …