Investment Banks Flourishing on Rising M&A Deals in India

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

With revenue shooting up to $413 million thereby marking a hike
of 23 per cent in the last fiscal year, Indian investment banks
certainly have reasons to smile. The credit goes to large contributions
from global merger and acquisitions (M&A) along with
Indian conglomerates.

For the past few years, M&A deals has paved the way
for a number of investment banks seeking the path to India to establish
strong presence. Many high value deals are showing great interest
in the Indian investment banking space. The recently happened Tata-Corus
deal can be looked upon as an example. Also, several numbers of
big-ticket deals are there in the pipeline.

The list includes the known name of Hutchisson-Essar on
the top followed by ABN Amro bank that spearheaded the
pack of investment banks in the last year, accounting for the highest
volume of M&A deals.

The total number of deals is believed to shoot up to $28.2 billion
in 2006 as against $18.3 billion in 2005. Of these, 480 were M&A
deals and 302 private equity ones, as per the data compiled by Grant
Thornton, a leading financial and business adviser to mid-corporate
businesses.

Creating new benchmarks, Indian investment banking firms are certainly
leaving other developed markets behind.

Industry watchers hold competition in the Indian market responsible
for the slower growth in India as compared to China, resulting in
lower fees. However, the situation can improve in the wake of growing
number of larger deals including Indian firms as well.

Photo: Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Ank Kumar, Infosys) 03 by Ank Kumar, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.