Merger and acquisition activity in the mid-market sector is proving more resilient to the credit crunch than the wider market, according to data from Baird, a specialist investment bank.

The Milwaukee-based bank recorded 367 disclosed deals of under £500m (€636m, $989m) in the UK in the first quarter of the year, just 15 per cent below that for the “highly buoyant” first quarter of 2007, although deal values fell 37 per cent to £12.1bn, suggesting the lower end of the market was most robust. In the US there were 781 deals, 25 per cent fewer than a year earlier.