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Pace of merger deals slows in first half of 2013

NEW YORK — Wall Street takeover advisers are tempering their forecasts about mergers for the rest of the year as chief executives wait to see if a Federal Reserve policy shift moves equity markets.

The pace of new deals slowed in the first half of 2013, with companies announcing $988 billion worth of takeovers, down from $1.03 trillion a year earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

‘‘What we are increasingly hearing is a reassessment of timing,’’ Morgan Stanley’s chief financial officer, Ruth Porat, told analysts July 18.

The Fed will probably start reducing $85 billion in monthly Treasury and mortgage-debt purchases in September, curtailing its stimulus program, according to half of the economists surveyed by Bloomberg News earlier this month.

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That has led some CEOs to wonder if share prices are about to swing, said Doug Sipkin, a Susquehanna Financial Group analyst. ‘‘People are reluctant to buy things because they’re not sure what the true value is,’’ Sipkin said.

Volatility in stock markets means ‘‘not everyone believes in these being stable valuations,’’ said Alexander Roos, who leads Boston Consulting Group’s mergers and acquisitions practice from Berlin.

‘‘People generally don’t engage in M&A unless they have some confidence in their assumptions about the future,’’ Lazard CEO Kenneth M. Jacobs said July 25.

‘‘That generally happens when you can see the macroeconomic environment either improving or stable. And that hasn’t been the case for the past six years or so, really since before the [2008] crisis.’’