I doubt that M&A exchanges are already a viable business model, but my research after the last article surprised me.

The M&A market is one with extraordinary high transaction cost in sourcing right targets, as buyers and sellers usually try to avoid open bids. Dealmakers such as VCs, private equity firms, law firms or banks usually provide the matchmaking. The image and brand is usually a main reason not to open up an acquisition demand. However the percentage of transaction cost compared to the complete deal remains small as long as the deal volume is big enough.

For smaller deal volumes the calculation looks a bit different. There has been some development in online M&A exchanges for small and mid-size enterprises.

M&A Online provides a rather simple database to post and search for leads. Emergers seems to do a better job and presents several M&A opportunities. IT M&A exchange has started too early and lost faith (and money). An Indian exchange looks to be in a better shape.

Mr. Kaufmann pointed me to several more exchanges:

• BizBuySell in US
• Change Online in Germany
• Unternehmensmarkt in Germany