BackIndian companies closed deals worth $48 billion during 2014
The deals include mergers and acquisitions and private equity transactions
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Mumbai: Indian companies signed deals worth $48 billion in 2014, compared with $38 billion last year, an increase of 26.31%, according to data released by consulting firm Grant Thornton India LLP.
These deals include mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and private equity (PE) transactions.
M&A activity saw increase in inbound and domestic segments with the total value of inbound deals during 2014 increasing by 32% from last year’s deal value of $8.7 billion. The total value of domestic deals increased by 1.7 times over 2013, with around 20 deals valued at over $100 million each.
The total value of outbound deals stood at $5.7 billion across 111 deals; the segment saw a drop of 38% compared with 2013.
Private equity funds invested $11 billion across 565 deals in the country, an increase of 11% compared with 2013 when deals worth $10 billion were signed across 452 deals.
Information technology (IT) and IT-enabled services (ITES) contributed 39% to the total private equity deal value, with e-commerce continuing to lead the dealscape.
“2014 clearly witnessed a significant surge in M&A and PE deal activity with an increase of more than 26% compared to 2013. Though a large section of the 2014 deals appeared to be the pipeline deals which were on the back burner and were revived due to change in sentiment, the 2015 outlook remains bullish," said Prashant Mehra, partner at Grant Thornton.
“We expect a sharp increase in deal activity in both M&A and private equity across sectors especially, healthcare and pharma, IT/TES and financial services. We could also see the turn-around in deal momentum in the infrastructure and infrastructure allied services sector which was subdued in 2014," Mehra added.
Apart from private market deals, companies listed on the stock exchanges raised $5 billion through qualified institutional placements (QIP). Twenty-seven companies raised money through QIPs, whereas 33 initial public offerings (IPO) were recorded for this year.
“A new trend that is also emerging is angel investing and that’s slowly but surely becoming an active investment class who are backing entrepreneurs. Furthermore, crowd funding and large corporates acting as seed or early stage funders seems to be encouraging promoters and have given them new avenues for funding," Mehra added.
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