LONDON, June 7 (Reuters) - A couple of mammoth mergers drovethe value of takeovers of British companies to their highestlevel since the financial crisis during the first quarter,official data showed on Tuesday.
The Office for National Statistics said the value oftakeovers of British companies rose to 49.4 billion pounds($72.0 billion)in the first three months of the year, thehighest amount since the second quarter of 2007 and up from 9.2billion pounds at the end of 2015.
Almost all of this reflected the $52 billion merger of RoyalDutch Shell and BG Group.
The value of takeovers between British companies rose to11.6 billion pounds, up from 1.2 billion pounds in the fourthquarter and the highest since the end of 2008.
The ONS said this mostly reflected BT Group's purchase of mobile operator EE.
The number of both foreign and domestic takeovers fellduring the first quarter compared with the last three months of2015, the ONS said. ($1 = 0.6857 pounds) (Reporting by Andy Bruce, editing by David Milliken)