Private equity deals including qualified institutional placements witnessed a significant rebound in the first two months this year and amounted to over USD 1.8 billion, a report by global consultancy firm Grant Thornton says.
According to Grant Thornton’s Dealtracker, in January 2010, there were 29 private equity (PE) including qualified institutional placement (QIP) deals amounting to USD 1.24 billion. There were as many as 20 such deals (PE and QIP) totalling to around USD 583 million in February this year.
The PE and QIP deal volume in the first two months of 2010 aggregated to over USD 1.8 billion, representing a significant improvement over the corresponding period last year, when it stood at a modest USD 649 million during January-February 2009.
Commenting on the February 2010 deal volume, the firm’s Partner Specialist Advisory Services C G Srividya said, “private equity investments have picked up significantly from the early 2009 levels and non-QIP investments contributed the most of the PE investments in February.”
Regarding the January PE (including QIP) deal volume which touched a whopping USD 1.24 billion, Srividya said, “it is also extremely encouraging to note that private equity investments have bounced back almost close to the 2008 levels and more importantly, more than 60 per cent of the value have been pure play (non QIP) investments.”
Srividya further added, “there are several indications that the momentum will continue and we expect to see many more deals compared to last year.”
Big ticket transactions dominated the deal space so far this year as the top five PE and QIP deals accounted for 59 per cent of the total PE deals values in January and in February the big deals cornered as much as 87 per cent of the total deal pie.
A sector wise analysis shows that the top segments in this field were — finance, real estate, power, manufacturing, telecom, IT & ITeS, education and oil and gas, Grant Thornton said.