Asia Watch: M&A Doom and Gloom … and, er, Boom

by ExitAdvisor · 24th September 2016

Goldman Sachs, the investment bank, plans a downsizing of nearly a third of its investment banking talent in Asia to get rid of approx 100 of its 300 staff, according to Reuters.

GS plans reducing the number of bankers it currently has working on M&A deals. Jobs cuts are falling disproportionately on Hong Kong, Singapore and China.

The total value of M&A deals across the Asia-Pacific region has dropped to $572.9 billion so far this year, from $745.7 billion in the same period of 2015, according to Thomson Reuters data… Goldman Sachs cutting nearly 30% of Asia investment banking jobs

thumbnail courtesy of cnbc.com

In other Asian M&A news, the Indian Economic Times reports that M&A activity is at an all time high with M&A deals in August 2016 worth $ 2.5 billion, a 300% year-on-year increase.

The surge in deal value was largely on account of big ticket deals, said the Grant Thornton report.

Banking and financial sector led the deal activity contributing over 30 per cent of total deal value driven by the USD 777 million HDFC Life’s merge .. Read more here

Merrill Datasite have published their latest figures and predictions for the last four months of the year and they’re expecting a bumper few months. They say…

Eight months into the year, it is now obvious that the global M&A growth rate has slowed down compared to the record highs of 2015. The month of August saw 946 deals worth US$182.2bn, the lowest-valued August since 2013 (US$152.7bn) and down 34.7% by value compared to August 2015 (US$278.9bn). Year-to-date M&A activity, which saw 10,487 deals worth US$1.8tn, was also down 27.4% with 1,331 fewer deals compared to the same period last year (11,818 deals worth US$2.5tn in the year-to-date 2015).

Private equity was less active on the buyout side in August 2016 with only 138 deals worth US$18.9bn, down 51.3% by value compared to the same period last year (199 deals worth US$38.9bn). Exits, on the other hand, were relatively stable with 138 deals worth US$42.3bn, a slight 1.1% decrease compared to August 2015 (US$42.8bn)…Download the report here.