The first half of 2012 witnessed M&A deals worth US$24.60bn in India, which has been the lowest in the last three years and down 19% compared to the first six months of 2011, says deal tracker Grant Thornton.

"Although the Eurozone is less optimistic about the growth prospects of their own economies, a large proportion of businesses within Europe are actively seeking opportunities abroad and expanding into higher growth markets such as the BRIC economies," says Munesh Khanna, Senior Partner, M&A, Grant Thornton.

The total value of deals (M&A and PE) in the first half of 2012 stood at US$28.3bn, while the average deal size for the January to June 2012 was US$75.36mn and US$17.24mn, for M&A and PE, respectively. There were 544 deals in first half of 2012 (M&A and PE).

Internal mergers and restructuring deals have gained momentum over the years. The first six months of 2012 have seen a number of such large deals like the Sesa Goa-Vedanta transaction, Tech Mahindra-Satyam Computer merger. 

The long awaited acquisition of RBS' retail and commercial banking business in India by HSBC also took place during this period. Other key deals in the January to June period of 2012 were Piramal Group's takeover of Decision Resources Group, and Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance's investment in Max New York Life Insurance.

The private equity deal value for the January to June period was US$3.8bn, which was ~45% down in value terms compared to the first half of last year.

The key PE deals in the first half of 2012 included Morgan Stanley's investment in Continuum Energy, Accel and Tiger Global's investment in Flipkart and Temasek's investment into Godrej Consumer.