The sluggishness in the funding environment continues. The number of funding deals across the world fell by a third in the first two months of this calendar year. There are only a few regions that have bucked the trend.

Meanwhile, the US reported a fall of 33.8 per cent., followed by the UK at 21.4 per cent., China at 23 per cent and India at 13 per cent.

“A total of 6,705 deals, which include mergers and acquisitions, private equity, and venture financing deals, were announced globally during January-February 2024. This reflects a fall of 29 per cent when you compare with 9,465 deals reported in the same period last year,” GlobalData, a data and analytics company, has said.

“This year so far seems to be no different from the previous year as deal activity remains sluggish. Deal activity shrank in 2023 compared to 2022, and the declining trend has been continuing in 2024 as well. All the regions and most of the key markets also followed the same trend,” Aurojyoti Bose, Lead Analyst at GlobalData, said.

All the deal types under coverage witnessed a year-on-year decline in volumes during January-February 2024.

M&A DEALS

“The number of mergers and acquisitions deals declined by 23.8 per cent during January-February 2024 compared to January-February 2023, whereas the volume of private equity deals and venture financing deals fell by 36.1 per cent and 36.5 per cent YoY, respectively,” he said.

South and Central America reported the highest percentage of decline (43.3 per cent) in the number of deals. North America, which continues to top the chart in terms of deal volume, stood second with a fall of 34.4 per cent.

While Europe reported a fall of 28.6 per cent in the number of deals reported during the two months, Asia-Pacific registered a drop of 19.6 per cent MEA (Middle East and Africa) 33.1 per cent and South and Central America registered a decline of 43.3 per cent in the number of deals during the period under study.

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