Domestic M&A muted; PE deals surge in July: Grant Thornton

Discussing the deal activity for the month of July on the merger and acquisitions, as well as private equity front, Prashant Mehra, Partner, Grant Thornton told CNBC-TV18 that although there has been uptick in the total number of merger and acquisitions (M&A), the domestic deals have been muted. However, private equity deals have risen upto 110 deals crossing USD 2.1 billion.Below is the transcript of Prashant Mehra's interview with Kritika Saxena of CNBC-TV18.Q: Let me begin by asking you about your sense on the deal activity in July both as far as the M&A deal is concerned as well as the PE deal pipeline?A: July witnessed about USD 6.7 billion across 150 deals. M&A seems to be back on the growth path with about USD 4.6 billion across 50 transactions. However the sad part is most of that has actually been the growth coming from cross border activity and the domestic M&A has been extremely sombre.As far as the private equity front is concerned we have been seeing some tremendous activity there with USD 2.1 billion across 110 deals which is a significant surge from the same month previous year which is July 2014. The volume growth has been almost 100 percent and the value growth has been about 16 percent. Overall compared to the last month in 2015 which is June, this month has been trending much better as far as the deal activity is concerned and we have seen about 10 deals which have gone over USD 100 million.Q: According to trend IT sector usually keeps dominating most of the deal activity. Is that the same case in July as well?A: As far as the private equity sector - IT and ITeS sector continues to dominate the sector pack with contributing over 35 percent in terms of deal values followed closely by real estate which is 15 percent and telecom at 23 percent.As far as the M&A sector is concerned, energy and natural resources this month has contributed significantly to about 50 percent in deal values and one of the key contributor has been the Rosneft Essar deal which was valued at about USD 2.2 billion. In the M&A otherwise pharma and healthcare continues to contribute significantly, last month it was about 20 percent.