The volume of the M&A market with a threshold of $1 million in July-August 2025 decreased by a third compared to the result of the same month in 2024. The total value of transactions during the period decreased by 32.8%, amounting to $4.06 billion against $6.04 billion a year earlier. This is stated in the bulletin "Market of Mergers and Acquisitions" of the AK&M News Agency (issue No. 329-330).
The number of transactions also decreased: 54 transactions took place in the reporting period, compared with 61 a year earlier. In ruble terms, the amount of transactions in July-August decreased by 60.1% to 327.41 billion rubles from 544.39 billion rubles a year earlier.
However, this decrease is due to the conclusion of a major transaction in August last year, 2024 — the next resale of the First Cargo Company, the estimated value of the transaction was $2,741.6 million (see bulletin issue No. 317-318). In July-August 2025, AK&M analysts did not note such large-scale transactions.
During the period, only one major deal worth more than $1 billion was recorded in the mechanical engineering industry — the purchase by S8 Capital holding Armen Sargsyan and MT-Integration Group of 79% in Aquarius Group of Companies for an estimated $1,195 million.
The second and third largest deals were below $1 billion. The second largest was in the construction sector, in particular, commercial real estate. This is the purchase of the Belaya Ploshchad business center by a structure associated with Sberbank for $587.9 million. The third most expensive transaction was in trade: the Sokolov jewelry store chain was sold to businessman Anton Pak. The estimated value of the transaction was $497.9 million. Of the ten largest transactions in July-August, five were concluded specifically with commercial real estate and trading assets.
The price of realizable assets decreased slightly: the average transaction cost, excluding the largest, decreased by 1.6% to $54 million from $54.9 million in the same period of 2024.
Transactions that are classified as domestic according to the AK&M methodology (when the asset is located in Russia and the buyer is a Russian resident), but the seller is a foreign investor, remain rare. In July-August 2025, only 5 such transactions out of 54 were recorded, and their total value was only 3.4% of the total volume of transactions during the period. In July and August, investors from the United States, Turkey, Latvia, Azerbaijan and Sweden left the Russian market.
Read more about the results of the M&A market in issue No. 329-330 of the monthly bulletin "Market of Mergers and Acquisitions" of the AK&M News Agency.
The newsletter and the database of M&A transactions can be purchased at the AK&M Analytical Newsletters and Research Store.
