Basic materials M&A hits seven-year high buoyed by chemicals deals

LONDON, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Worldwide dealmaking in the basic materials sector rose in July to a seven-year high, lifted by U.S. fertiliser maker CF Industries' $8 billion bid for some of Dutch firm OCI NV's North American and European, Thomson Reuters data shows.

So far this year, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) worth $615.4 billion have been announced in Europe, the data shows, with the value of deals in basic materials climbing 90 percent to $96.5 billion from the same period last year.

Globally, the materials sector recorded $217.1 billion worth of deals, a 45 percent increase compared with a year ago.

Chemicals, which together with metals and mining dominated basic materials M&A this year, totalled $103.8 billion worth of global deals, an all-time record so far.

The largest deal of the week was announced in the healthcare sector.

Dublin-based drugmaker Shire (Xetra: S7E.DE - news) offered $30 billion to buy Baxalta (Berlin: 9BX.BE - news) , a company spun-off by Baxter International (NYSE: BAX - news) . But the bid, which aimed to forge the leading global specialist in rare diseases, was rebuffed on Tuesday.

Worldwide M&A is up 41 percent year-to-date versus the same period last year, with deals worth $2,716 trillion having been struck so far. (Reporting by Pamela Barbaglia; editing by Susan Thomas)