According to EY’s 30th Transaction Quarterly, M&A activity in India saw a significant y-o-y jump in both deal volume and disclosed deal value in 2Q18. While deal volume rose by 19% to 273 deals, on a y-o-y basis, the disclosed deal value was 6.8x at US$34.8 billion in comparison to US$5.1 billion in 2Q17. This difference can mainly be attributed to the six big ticket deals (>US$1 billion) in 2Q18. The biggest deal in this quarter was the US$16 billion acquisition of Flipkart by Walmart Inc, which accounted for 46% of the total disclosed deal value.
From a sectoral perspective, financial services (39 deals; US$1.1 billion) recorded the highest number of deals and consumer products and retail (30 deals; US$16.5 billion) dominated in terms of deal value. Telecom (2 deals; US$5.4 billion), diversified industrial products (23 deals; US$2.9 billion) and metals and mining (6 deals; US$960 million) were also in the limelight as they clocked substantially high deal value as well.
Commenting on M&A Scenario, Amit Khandelwal, Managing Partner, Transaction Advisory Services, EY, said,“M&A activity is expected to stay positive in the coming quarters, on the back of continued interest of financial and strategic investors in the Indian market. Domestic activity should strengthen further as players across sectors look to expand scale, de-leverage balance sheets and innovate their offerings through increased usage of new technologies. The restructuring deals will remain active in the coming months as the NPAs cleaning is a high priority for banks. Furthermore, the successful resolution of certain cases recently, with healthy recovery rates under the IBC, along with the implementation of project ‘Sashakt’, will further add to the pipeline.”
