PE activity jumps almost 50% in July: Report

Private equity (PE) activity in the country rose by almost 50 per cent to $1.22 billion worth of transactions, a report said on Thursday.

According to Grant Thornton's PE dealtracker report for July 2017, the industry witnessed $1.22 billion worth of transactions spread across 59 deals.

In July 2016, the country's PE activity recorded 88 deals worth $826 million.

"July witnessed around 60 transactions valued at $1.2 billion, which was almost 50 per cent more in value than the same month last year," Prashant Mehra, Partner at Grant Thornton India, was quoted as saying in a statement.

"The sector focus this month for PE seems to be the BFSI sector with manufacturing and pharma rallying closely behind. On the other hand start up sector continues to attract invest attention with almost 50 per cent of the PE volumes."

The report disclosed that the domestic PE investment values witnessed a strong increase on account of five big-ticket deals, valued at over $100 million as compared to only one such deal in July 2016.

Looking forward, Mehra predicted that key growth will "perhaps" be from PE deals which are looked as an alternate means of financing domestic M&A (mergers and acquisitions).

"Overall, the transaction space looks good. Clocking around $9 billion in deal values already, this year with a 25 per cent growth over 2016 in deal values," Mehra said.

--IANS

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