M&A deal tally at $29 bn till Oct, up 23%

The domestic market has seen an upsurge in deal value with 16 deals of over $100 mn each so far

A rebound in investor sentiment has pushed up M&A activity in India this year to $29 billion, up 22.58 per cent, says a Grant Thornton report.

According to the assurance, tax and advisory firm, during the January-October period of this year there were 486 M&A deals worth $28,818 million. In the year-ago period, there were 406 transactions amounting to $23,509 million.

"We are seeing a strong rebound in M&A and PE deal activity with investor confidence on a rebound. There is strong interest across inbound, outbound and also domestic deals," Grant Thornton India LLP Partner Raja Lahiri said.

The domestic market has seen an upsurge in deal value with 16 deals of over $100 million each so far.

In addition, the inbound activity has substantially increased both in terms of value and volume as compared to 2013 with 24 deals of over $100 million each.

"Inbound transactions from Japan have been growing with Softbank investing in Snapdeal and Olacabs in October 2014. We expect this trend to continue across other sectors as well," Lahiri said.

On a month-on-month basis however, October saw decline in M&A deal value as compared to October 2013, largely due to a dip in outbound and domestic deal values, despite robust volumes.

The top M&A deals of the month were, Tata Consultancy Services' merger with CMC Ltd worth $500 million, followed by UK-based Internet service provider New Call Telecom's 70 per cent stake buy in India-headquartered Nimbuzz for about $175 million.

Other major deals of October include, New Generation Holdings's acquisition of Valecha Engineering - Toll projects for $51.50 million and mobile VAS solutions company IMIMobile's acquisition of mobile messaging firm TextLocal for $16.60 million.

A sector-wise analysis shows that the IT & ITeS sector dominated the M&A landscape during the month as it attracted 15 deals worth $779.8 million, followed by the retail and consumer sector, which attracted seven transactions worth $34.2 million.