India Inc's Feb M&A tally jumps 5-fold at $1.3 bn

Corporate India's shopping spree continued unabated in the second month of this year, as deals worth over $1.3 billion were announced, a five-fold jump from the year-ago period, a report by global consultancy firm Grant Thornton said.

Driven by the significant momentum in the merger and acquisition (M&A) space in February 2010, the total deal tally in the first two months of this year has risen to nearly $4 billion.

"M&A and private equity deal activity has kept up with the significant momentum set from the beginning of 2010." Grant Thornton Partner Specialist Advisory Services C G Srividya said.

Elaborating further Srividya said: "This month has seen some significant improvement in an outbound deal activity, led by the acquisition of Equipav SA Acucar e Alcool by Shree Renuka Sugars. We have also seen some unique deals such as Religare Enterprises overseas acquisition of a private equity and venture capital investment company, Northgate Capital."

However, though there has been a significant uptrend in the deal street this year but, the deal volume so far this year is much less than February 2008, when it was close to $3 billion.

Cross border deals were the flavour of the month as they cornered the lion's share of the total deal pie.