M&A deal tally reaches $28 bn this year

The country's M&A activity rebounded strongly in the third quarter of this year, wherein $9 billion-worth of deals were announced, taking the total deal tally so far this year to $28 billion, says a survey.

According to the mergermarket India M&A Round-up, the third quarter of this year witnessed $9 billion-worth of deals, a whopping jump of 310% compared to the previous quarter of 2012 (April-June).

Aggregate deals during the first nine months of this year stood at $28 billion, just 3.6% shy of the Q1-Q3 2011 total deal value.

Deal volumes exhibited a similar trend, with the Q1-Q3 2012 total of 184 deals representing a decrease of just 8.5% from the 205 deals registered corresponding period a year ago, mergermarket said in a release.

Though on a year-on-year basis, the inbound and outbound deal values for the first nine months of 2012 was lower by 52.7% and 29.3%, respectively, the transaction levels relatively improved in the third quarter.

In the third quarter, cross-border M&A recovered slightly, mustering $6.3 billion of inbound M&A, the highest quarterly total since Q3 of 2011. Outbound activity stood at $2 billion, the best quarterly total since Q1 of 2011 which saw $2.4 billion of overseas acquisitions by Indian bidders.

A sector wise analysis shows that energy, mining and utilities commanded 38.1% of total M&A value in the first half of 2012, driven mainly by the Sesa Goa-Sterlite restructuring.

In terms of deal numbers, industrials and chemicals continues to dominate M&A deal volumes, along with the pharma, medical and biotech and business services sectors.

Morgan Stanley retained top spot in the financial adviser league tables with eight deals worth $12.1 billion, while, Ernst and Young topped the financial advisers' rankings in terms of volume, having advised on 12 transactions this year, the report said.

Data for the above report was based on announced deals of over $5 million. While, deals with undisclosed deal values are included where the target's turnover exceeds $10 million.

Moreover, all data excludes minority stake deals (10% - 30%) where the dominant target geography is Asia-Pacific and the deal value is less than $100 million, mergermarket said.