Emerging markets including India, China, Russia and Brazil are going to account for 20 per cent of the global mergers and acquisitions with the number of transactions matching the levels in 2008-09, according to investment bankers, who attended Dun & Bradstreet seminar here on Monday.

Also apart from the sectors that are generally abuzz with M&A activity such as pharma, healthcare and metals, mining and manufacturing, new sectors including retail and aviation would also experience hectic M&A activity going forward, they added.

“This 20 per cent increase has not been calculated on an arithmetic basis but on the basis of the theme that emerging markets which need to access technology and distribution in rest of the world are going to drive global mergers and acquisitions.

“Any company with dynamism and scale but lacking the opportunity to grow in their domestic market would be partaking in these mergers and acquisitions,” said Mr Gaurav Khungar, Managing Director and Head Corporate Finance Religare Capital Markets at a seminar organised on ‘Mergers & Acquisitions — the way forward' under the ‘CFO Series 2012'.

“Last year total M&A deals stood at 561 of which 146 were international whereas this year the number of international transactions has reached 250 already.

“The period of realisation for global companies that Indian M&As are not going to come cheap in terms of valuation has already begun and M&A activity is going to pick up in the third and fourth quarter of this year,” he added.

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