GE-Baker Hughes tie-up the latest in a year of big deals

GE and Baker Hughes said Monday they're combining their oil and gas businesses, the latest deal in a big year for corporate mergers and acquisitions. Including the tie-up between General Electric Co. and Baker Hughes Inc., October alone accounted for more than $320 billion worth of announced transactions involving U.S. firms. That demolished the old record of $240 billion set in July 2015, according to market researchers at Dealogic.

With two months left in the year, there have already been announced U.S. deals valued at nearly $1.4 billion and deals worldwide priced at nearly $3 billion, according to the Dealogic figures. The biggest one so far in 2016 is AT&T Inc.'s Oct. 22 announcement that was paying $85 billion for Time Warner Inc. If completed, that could be the seventh-biggest deal on record, just ahead of AT&T's 2006 acquisition of Bell South.

Among the other notable mergers and acquisitions announced this year and involving U.S. companies:

Bayer AG of Germany said in May it would buy St. Louis-based seed giant Monsanto Co. for $57 billion; it's still pending.

Qualcomm Inc. said last week it will buy Netherlands-based NXP Semiconductors NV for $39 billion; technology has been the leading sector for M&A activity.

Microsoft Corp. said in June it would buy social network LinkedIn Corp. for $26.2 billion, Microsoft's biggest acquisition ever by a wide margin.

London-based Shire PLC's $32 billion purchase of Illinois-based Baxalta was announced in January and completed in June, merging two big makers of drugs used to treat rare diseases.

Abbott Laboratories announced in June that it would buy medical-products maker St. Jude Medical Inc. for $25 billion, one of many deals in the health-care sector this year.

Though smaller than many other deals, Verizon's July agreement to buy Yahoo's core businesses for $4.8 billion was notable for uniting pioneer internet brands AOL and Yahoo under the control of a phone company.