Reforms helping M&A deals' sentiment: Grant Thornton India

India saw a total of 90 mergers and acquisitions in the month of October.  Raja Lahiri, Partner, Transaction Advisory Svc, Grant Thornton India, believes October was a good month for deal activity. "We saw deal value of around USD 3 billion, divided into M&A of USD 2.4 billion and private equity of USD 0.6 billion," he says.

Lahiri says the outlook for mergers and acquisitions remains positive. He says the reforms added with the general anti avoidance rules, (GAAR) is giving an impetus to the deals in India.

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Below is the edited transcript of Lahiri's interview with CNBC-TV18

Q: Take us through the trends that deal street saw this October, was it a good one?
A: Yes. October was actually a good month for deal activity. We saw deal value of around USD 3 billion, divided into M&A of USD 2.4 billion and private equity of USD 0.6 billion. A total of 90 deals in the month. So overall, the deal activity has been pretty good. Q: Does the outlook remain positive as well?
A: The positive outlook is definitely coming back. The government’s reforms on FDI in retail, aviation, broadcasting and also, the general anti-avoidance rules (GAAR), is clearly helping the deals sentiment. Deal activity is definitely picking up. And we hope to see some interesting deals in the next couple of quarters. Q: What really are the sectors that are in focus as far as deal street goes?
A: If you look at October, the top deals have been a very good deal from Rain Commodities acquiring a Belgian asset in a coal tar space worth USD 915 million.
We also saw GSPC looking at taking a majority stake in Gujarat Gas of over USD 400 million. These were the two large deals in the M&A space. Clearly, the two sectors, which dominated was manufacturing and oil and gas, as far as M&A are concerned. Private equity saw two very large deals. One was Blackstone real estate putting its money of USD 200 in Embassy; and Blackstone private equity putting money over USD 100 million in International Tractors. So, the deal activity looks good.