Until last year, it seemed that Asia’s economies would never stop growing. Then currencies in the region crashed, stock markets collapsed, and the International Monetary Fund was called upon to shore up the finances of several governments. The Asian miracle was over.

Yet one area at least remained buoyant. Between August and December 1997, in the thick of the crisis, more than 400 mergers and acquisitions worth a total of $35 billion were completed in Asia (excluding Japan), an increase of more than 200 percent over the same period in 1996.

Although many of the deals were struck at huge discounts to valuations made as late as summer 1997, the deal-making was not driven solely by bargain-basement prices. Economic imperatives and changing attitudes were fueling the acquisitions trend, largely unnoticed, before the crisis erupted. In the five years from 1992, the value of M&A deals in the region rose from $25 billion to $75 billion; in Malaysia and Singapore, deals were worth the equivalent of 7 percent of gross domestic product by 1996, similar to the level in the United States. The recent economic woes of some countries in the region have served to accentuate the forces driving these...