The Financial Post reports in its Friday, March 21, edition that the mergers and acquisitions business in 2013 was dominated by real estate deals. The Post's Barry Critchley writes that Crosbie & Co. director Colin Walker says sectors that historically were key contributors (such as mining) have become noticeably quiet, while others (such as real estate) have surfaced as the new leaders. The value of M&A deals in 2013 involving Canadian corporations was $158-billion, a decline of 13.9 per cent from 2012. But two normally large sectors -- base metals and oil and gas -- posted even larger declines with the former off by 77 per cent to $2.7-billion and the latter down 71 per cent to $17.6-billion. M&A transactions in the industrial products field were lower by 23 per cent. On the other hand, real estate supplied 33 per cent of total M&A activity in 2013 with the $3.5-billion acquisition by CT Real Estate Investment Trust of Canadian Tire's real estate portfolio. For the period Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, the largest deal was the $4.3-billion acquisition of UNS Energy by Fortis. That transaction was one of five valued at more than $1-billion that were announced in the quarter.