A total of 5,655 deals (comprising mergers & acquisitions (M&A), private equity, and venture financing deals) were announced in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region during January-May 2024, which was a decline of 9.9% compared to the 6,274 deals announced during the same period in the previous year, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

An analysis of GlobalData’s Deals Database also revealed that the number of M&A deals announced in the APAC region fell by 11% during January-May 2024 compared to January-May 2023, while the volume of private equity and venture financing deals registered year-on-year (YoY) decline of 28.9% and 7.7%, respectively.

Aurojyoti Bose, Lead Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Although there was a decline in deal activity in APAC, it was the least among all the regions. In fact, APAC was the only region to restrict the decline to single-digit during January-May 2024, while all other regions registered double-digit decline.”

Deal volume for North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, and the South and Central America regions declined by 25.6%, 20.1%, 14.8%, and 30.7% during January-May 2024 compared to January-May 2023, respectively.

Bose adds: “Deal activity across different countries within the APAC region remained a mixed bag, with key markets such as China and Australia experiencing decline but markets like India and South Korea showcasing improvement. This negated the impact of the decline experienced in other countries to some extent.”

China, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Indonesia were among the key APAC markets that witnessed a YoY decline in deal volume by 18.3%, 8.8%, 15%, 26.7%, 20%, and 25.5% during January-May 2024, respectively.

Meanwhile, markets such as India and South Korea saw respective deal volumes grow by 2.9% and 1% YoY during January-May 2024.