India Inc closes deals worth $52bn in 7 mths of 2010

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The Grant Thornton deal tracker report has been released for the month of July. The report shows that M&A and private equity activity continues to be robust in India. India Inc witnessed a total of USD 12.5 billion worth of M&A deals last month while a record of sorts has been set for the first seven months of 2010 where USD 52 billion worth of M&A's have been closed.

In an interview with CNBC-TV18, CG Srividya, Partner - Specialist Advisory Services, Grant Thornton outlined the contours of the deals done in July.

Q: July witnessed couple of high profile deals, including the Reliance Power - RNRL merger as well as JSW - JFE deal. Can you throw more light into what contributed to the USD 12.5 billion performance by India Inc?

A: July 2010 has seen some substantial deal values close which is USD 12.5 billion just for M&A and another USD 2 billion worth of deals of private equity. Significant part of the M&A has come from one large deal which as you mentioned is a Reliance Power-Reliance Natural Resources merger which itself is worth about USD 11 billion.

There have been a few other deals like the JFE's investment in JSW which itself is worth more than a billion dollars plus several other deals in the health care segment which have closed its values of USD 50 million to USD 100 million values. A lot of these volumes is driven by several other segments such as banking and financial services, media and entertainment and manufacturing.

What is I think really noteworthy is that there has been a history of record set for the first seven months of 2010 where have seen USD 52 billion worth of M&A's close and this is actually higher than what you have seen in 2007 which has been the year of deal so far where we did USD 51 billion and we need to know that there is another five months more where there will be more deals happening and we expect the activity to continue well going forward.