The global merger and acquisition activity is still to come out of the shadow cast by the economic downturn, with the M&A volume so far this year amounting to $1.3 trillion, down 38 per cent from the year ago period.
According to deal tracking firm Dealogic, "this year has been the slowest on record since 2005, when there were only 18,000 deals by August 5".
There was a downturn in terms of value as well as volume. The global M&A deal count hit 20,000 on August 5. Last year, this threshold was passed on June 18 and by August 5, 2008 there were already over 25,000 deals.
The EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) was the most active region and attracted 7,652 deals till August 5, accounting for 38 per cent of global M&A deal count.
However, in terms of most targeted nations, the United Kingdom attracted the maximum number of transactions and cornered 1,261 deals and Russia was ranked in the second place with 1,049 deals.
Middle market M&A, which involves deals valued between $100 million and $1 billion, also witnessed a drop this year, with only $215.5 billion so far this year compared to $404.7 billion in the year ago period.
Source: Business-Standard