New Delhi: India Inc saw a rise in monthly deals in February 2022 with M&A and PE segment’s volumes rising by 27 per cent on a year-on-year basis.

As per Grant Thornton Bharat, India Inc witnessed 190 deals being executed in February 2022 valued at $4.5 billion. On a YoY basis, February 2022 witnessed a 27 per cent and 62 per cent increase, in terms of volumes and values respectively, in comparison to the same time last year.

However, compared to January 2022, February has witnessed 21 per cent decline in volumes and 13 per cent decline in values. “Given as to how the Ukraine-Russia situation would unfold, financial markets are reacting with high caution. Further, rising crude oil prices and global inflationary pressures arising from supply disruptions are expected to weigh on domestic inflation conditions,” said Shanthi Vijetha, Partner-Growth at Grant Thornton Bharat. “A silver lining has been that February 2022 witnessed the emergence of five unicorns across tech-savvy sectors, and the numbers show that start-ups continue to dominate deal volumes in M&A and PE sectors.”

According to the deal-tracker report, the M&A segment witnessed five-month low volumes at 46 deals valued at $1.4 billion. “This shows a 7 per cent increase in the deal volumes, while values declined by 4 per cent compared to February 2021. “The deal volumes were driven by strategic deals where businesses continue to navigate an evolving economic environment, coupled with digital transformation, process simplification and automation.”

In addition, the report showed that PE investment values recorded $3.1 billion in February 2022 across 144 deals. “This translated to a significant 108 per cent increase in the deal values and 35 per cent growth in deal volumes, compared with the same period last year. The uptrend in the deal activity was on the back of 11 high-value investments valued at and over $100 million and 27 deals valued between $10- 99 million, compared to only five and 23 such deals, respectively, witnessed in February 2021. “The start-up sector continued to drive the PE deal volumes for February 2022, with 67 per cent share of PE volumes, with investment values of $0.8 billion.”