Private equity investments in July declined substantially both in terms of value and volume according to the latest Dealtracker report by Grant Thornton. While volumes declined 23% y-o-y, value was down 73% y-o-y. In value terms this is the lowest monthly investment in the last three years. This comes in the absence of big ticket investments as there were only three investments above $50 million in the month compared to 11 in July 2015.

In terms of sectoral spread, pharma and manufacturing dominated, together contributing over 70% to total M&A deal values. Of the total PE deal value of $0.7 million in July, nearly 30% came from start-ups and the other major contributor was BFSI.

On the M&A front, cross-border deals remained at par with the previous year but there was an eight-fold increase in deal value in domestic M&A, which contributed over $2 billion in July this year. The overall M&A market witnessed significant surge in deal values (96% y-o-y) with intensive domestic and inbound deal activity. Domestic deal activity grew exponentially, over eight times y-o-y contributing over 40% of the total deal values in July 2016.