India Inc's deal value nearly halves in a month: report

India Inc's deal activity has nearly halved in just one month as mergers & acquisitions (M&A) as well as private equity transactions in October amounted to only $2.5 billion, a latest report says.

In October, M&A deals of around $2.13 billion and private equity transactions of about $372 million were announced, global consultancy major Grant Thornton has said.

In September, the value of mergers & acquisitions as well as private equity transactions stood at around $4.2 billion.

The downtrend was evident in terms of value as well as volume as only 26 M&A deals were announced in October while in September it was 35. In private equity, there were 12 deals in October as against 16 deals in September.

The most significant M&A deals have been Norway-based Telenor ASA's acquisition of a majority stake in Unitech Wireless for $1.36 billion, followed by Tata Consultancy Services' acquisition of Citigroup Global Services for $0.51 billion, the latest issue of Dealtracker said.

The report further highlights that cross-border deals outnumbered domestic ones in terms of both number as well as worth. "There were 10 domestic deals wherein both acquirers and target companies were Indian with an announced value of $0.53 billion and 16 cross-border deals with an announced value of $1.60 billion," the report said.

In the case of cross-border deals, outbound deals surpassed inbound transactions as a measure of volume.