A total of 17,410 deals (comprising mergers & acquisitions [M&A], private equity, and venture financing deals) were announced in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region during 2021, which is an increase of 16.8% over 14,903 deals announced during the previous year, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

An analysis of GlobalData’s Financial Deals Database revealed that the deal value during the year 2021 increased by 6.1% compared to the previous year.

Aurojyoti Bose, Lead Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Despite the COVID-19 pandemic and the Omicron scare looming over, there was an overall year-on-year improvement in deal activity, though the month-on-month trend remained inconsistent. In fact, most of key APAC markets witnessed improvement in deal-making sentiments during 2021, which also reflects in growth in announcements of deal volume in these markets.”

For instance, markets such as China, India, Australia, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia and New Zealand witnessed growth in deal volume by 11.1%, 48.5%, 20.5%, 28.9%, 22.4%, 6.8% and 36.7%, respectively in 2021 compared to the previous year.

Bose concludes: “Most of the deal types under coverage also witnessed improvement in deal activity. The number of M&A and venture financing deals increased by 1.2% and 37.5%, respectively. However, private equity deals witnessed 9% decline in deal volume.”