A total of 11,717 deals (mergers & acquisitions (M&A), private equity (PE) and venture financing deals) were announced globally during the first quarter (Q1) of 2024, which was a decline of 20.2% compared to announcement of 14,687 deals during the same period in previous year, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

Aurojyoti Bose, Lead Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “The decline could be attributed to the prevailing dent in deal making sentiments amid the challenging and uncertain market conditions. All regions witnessed decline in deals volume, as most of the key markets experienced subdued activity Q1 2024. All the deal types also registered decline during the quarter.”

An analysis of GlobalData’s Deals Database revealed that the number of M&A deals declined by 14.4% during Q1 2024 compared to first quarter of 2023 while private equity and venture financing deals volume registered a year-on-year (YoY) decline of 19.1% and 28.8%, respectively, during the quarter.

Deal volume also declined across all the regions during Q1 2024. For instance, North America, which continues to dominate globally in terms of deal volume, witnessed a year-on-year (YoY) decline of 24.3% during Q1 2024.

Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, and South and Central America too witnessed respective deals volume decline by 20.6%, 12.2%, 18.7%, and 39.8% during the quarter.

The decline is driven the subdued deal activity experienced in most of the key markets. For instance, the US, the UK, China, Japan, Canada, Germany, Australia, South Korea, France and Italy witnessed YoY decline in deals volume by 23.7%, 13%, 18.8%, 8.5%, 29.3%, 20%, 5.2%, 1.8%, 41.6%, and 4%, respectively, in Q1 2024.