Shareholders are rewarding companies for making takeover bids – reversing their traditional positions of dumping companies’ shares when they make approaches– suggesting they want companies to use the piles of cash they have accumulated on their balance sheets for a long-awaited return in M&A activity.

Companies making takeover bids this year have seen their share prices outperform the market by an average of 2.1% over the 28 days following a bid announcement, according to figures from Thomson Financial Data and Nomura Strategy Research.