India Inc Strikes M&A Deals Worth $6.5 Billion in July: Thornton

New Delhi: Corporate India announced merger and acquisition deals worth $6.5 billion in July taking the deal tally for the first seven months of this year to $23.82 billion, says a Grant Thornton report.

According to the assurance, tax and advisory firm, the inbound deal activity has more than doubled in terms of value and volume against 2013.

July witnessed 56 deals worth $6.54 billion, a jump of 42.48 per cent over the same month last year, when there were 42 such transactions worth $4.59 billion.

"There has been clear upswing in the M&A and PE deal activity with 3 $1 billion plus deals in the month of July and with $30 billion deal value during the first seven months (January-July 2014)," Grant Thornton India LLP Partner Raja Lahiri said.

The report further noted that post elections, the domestic and inbound deal activity has seen a resurgence in terms of value as well as volume.

The M&A market saw seven deals of over $100 million each, of which two deals were of close to $2 billion each, the report said.

Going forward the deal activity is expected to go up further especially in the inbound deals segment as international players are betting on Indian assets.

"We believe that deal activity will continue to increase and we are already seeing renewed and robust interest from international players looking at Indian assets," Lahiri said.

The Reliance Power-Jaiprakash Power deal was termed as the deal of the month. The Anil Ambani Group firm Reliance Power's has signed an initial agreement to acquire all the three hydroelectric power plants of Jaiprakash Associates Ltd.

The other major deals in July include the Diageo-United Spirits' $1.9 billion deal; Teleperformance- Aegis deal wherein the Essar Group firm AGC Holdings sold its BPO business in the US, the Philippines and Costa Rica to Paris- based outsourcing firm Teleperformance for $610 million.

Finnish firm Huhtamaki's acquisition of Mumbai-based flexible packaging firm Positive Packaging for $336 million was the fourth major deal during July, followed by Wipro's multi-million dollar dual pact with ATCO, the Grant Thornton report said.