The study examined data from more than 25,000 companies globally over the 20 years until the end of 2013, and was conducted by dataroom and technology company Intralinks and the Cass Business School at the City University London.

It included analysis of more than 265,000 deals and identified almost 1500 companies it rated as excellent corporate portfolio managers (ECPMs), because they "consistently outperformed" their global peers in generating above-average shareholder returns.

Of Australia's active mergers and acquisitions firms, 13 per cent were identified as ECPMs, trailing only the Netherlands at 27 per cent, Finland at 18 per cent and Britain at 16 per cent. Australia was ahead of France at 12 per cent, Germany at 9 per cent and the United States at 8 per cent. The report focused on listed companies with a market capitalisation of at least $US10 million ($12.9 million) and assessed acquisitions and divestments.

Macquarie has this year announced the purchase of a fleet of 90 aircraft from private equity group Terra Firma in a $US4 billion acquisition. During the fallout from the global financial crisis the bank made a spate of acquisitions, including funds management group Delaware Investments and boutique firm Fox-Pitt Kelton Cochran Caronia Waller.

Among Domino's Pizza's most notable recent deals was its $280 million purchase of Japan's third-largest pizza delivery chain. The Australian-based group, which listed in 2005, bought a 75 per cent stake in Domino's Pizza Japan two years ago.

Other Australian companies making it into the group of 82 local ECPMs were telecommunications company M2 Group, Retail Food Group, Silver Lake Resources, and among financial services companies, Challenger, ANZ Banking Group and Westpac Banking Corp.

Companies rated as ECPMs also tended to be very aware of market conditions and asset valuations, increasing the value of acquisitions relative to divestments after downturns in financial markets, the report said. It also identified a tendency by those companies towards smaller acquisitions, finding ECPMs had an average value of purchases of 0.18 times their own sales, compared with 0.26 times for firms that weren't rated in that category.

"They [ECPMs] appear to prefer to avoid large transformational acquisitions, which could suffer from execution or integration risk, and instead are more likely to be focused on targeting more reasonably sized 'strategic' acquisitions that fill product, technology, or market gaps in their businesses," said Philip Whitchelo, Intralinks' vice-president of strategy and product marketing.

"Funnily enough, lists of the worst deals in history seem to include many of the transformational variety ... These huge deals usually suffer from either a lack of due diligence or a botched integration due to size, complexity, or cultural issues."

The report also found that ECPMs had greater engagement with private equity firms and other public companies, and employed all-cash bids more often than lower-rated peers.

ECPMs also made significantly more acquisitions than company divestments over the 20 years examined. The average annual normalised total shareholder return for ECPMs over the period was 8.3 per cent, compared with -0.7 per cent for other active mergers and acquisitions firms.

"Successful M&A deals are rarely done in isolation, yet most studies look at individual acquisitions and their success as if they were," said Scott Moeller, finance professor and director of the Cass M&A Research Centre.

"M&A is hard work. There are risks involved but the potential rewards are huge."