A total 4,845 mergers & acquisitions (M&A), private equity, and venture financing deals were announced globally during January 2022, which represents a decline of 19.5% over the 6,020 deals announced during the previous month, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

An analysis of GlobalData’s Financial Deals Database has revealed that all regions worldwide experienced such subdued deal activity in January 2022, and all deal types were affected.

Aurojyoti Bose, Lead Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “January’s subdued deal activity is likely attributed to the weak performance of almost all major markets. The impact of COVID-19 variant outbreaks have dented deal-making sentiments. However, judging by the trend seen in 2020 and 2021, this deal-making dent may be for the short term.”

The North America region continued to account for the highest share of global deal activity in January, with a 45.1% share. However, it witnessed decline in deal volume by 10.3%, compared to the previous month. North America was followed by the Asia-Pacific region (with 26% share), Europe (23.5%), Middle East and Africa (3.3%), and South and Central America (2.2%).

Several key markets experienced a decline in deal activity in January 2022, compared to the previous month. The US saw a drop of 9.6%, China (29.5%), Canada (19.6%), India (21.2%), the UK (20.1%) and Germany (26.6%), among others.

Bose continues: “All the deal types (under coverage for this analysis) witnessed decline in deal volume in January 2022, compared to the previous month. The number of private equity, venture financing and M&A deals decreased by 8.2%, 22.8% and 18.7%, respectively, in January.”