India-involvement announced M&A activity witnessed an all-time high of $148 billion in the first nine months of 2022, up 58.2 per cent from a year ago, the latest data from Refinitiv, an LSEG business showed.

This surpassed the previous annual deal activity of $132 billion in 2018. For the first nine months of this calendar year, the number of announced deals grew 20.5 per cent year-on-year and saw the busiest-ever first nine months, according to Refinitiv.

“Deal making activity involving India hit record levels, defying slowdown globally. This was led by the HDFC -HDFC Bank Ltd merger in a deal valued at $ 60.4 billion - the largest Indian-involvement deal on record. More consolidations are expected to drive activity across various sectors such as financials, technology, healthcare, energy & power and industrials for value creation and market share gain”, Elaine Tan, Senior Analyst at Refinitiv said.

She also highlighted that private equity-backed acquisitions in India also bolstered activity and witnessed the busiest-ever period, with the number of announced deals jumping 35 per cent a year ago. “By value, India captured 28 per cent market share of Asia Pacific’s PE-backed acquisitions, while China accounted for 24 per cent market share. This is the first time since the 2008 that India accounted for a larger market share than China in Asia Pacific’s PE-backed M&A activity”, Tan added.

Domestic M&A activity — primarily driven by the mega HDFC-HDFC Bank merger deal —reached record levels amounting to $ 105.6 billion, up 190.6 per cent from the same period in 2021.  Inbound M&A fell 38 per cent from a year ago and totalled $30.7 billion. Outbound M&A activity reached a four-year high and totalled $8.8 billion, up 82.4 per cent year-on-year, with the United States as the most targeted nation with a 49.6 per cent market share. 

This was driven by the $ 3.3 billion pending acquisition of the United States-based Biosimilars Business of Viatris Inc by Biocon Biologics Ltd, making it the largest-ever Indian outbound acquisition in U.S. healthcare.

Most of the M&A deal making activity involving India targeted the financial sector, totalling $69.4 billion, a three-times increase from a year ago and capturing 46.9 per cent market share. 

The high technology sector, which saw the most significant number of deals, totalled $18.6 billion, up 48.0 per cent from a year ago with a 12.5 per cent market share. Industrials captured an 8.5 per cent market share with $12.6 billion worth of deals, up 98.5 per cent compared to the same period last year.

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