The Russian M&A market with a threshold of $1 million in 2024 has grown compared to the previous year. The total value of transactions increased by 7.11%, amounting to $54.3 billion against $50.7 billion a year earlier, but their number decreased by 6.9% to 499 from 536 transactions. This is stated in the bulletin "Market of Mergers and Acquisitions" of the AK&M News Agency (issue No. 322).
In ruble terms, the amount of transactions in the reporting period increased much more noticeably — by 18.1%, to 5.11 trillion rubles from 4.33 trillion rubles in 2023, and became the largest in the history of observations.
At the same time, assets have become somewhat cheaper. The average transaction value, excluding the largest ones, decreased by 6.6% year-on-year to $58.5 million from $62.7 million in 2023.
AK&A analysts note several trends in the M&A market in 2024. Firstly, the active participation of closed-end mutual funds in company purchases (13.7% of the total value). Secondly, it is the nationalization of assets by court order (7.2%).
Over the past year, 9 transactions worth more than $1 billion have been recorded, and the largest of them was the transaction involving the ZPIF.: It has become a record in the information technology (IT) industry. This is the sale of the Russian part of Yandex to a consortium of investors, which includes the company's management and a number of large businessmen, for $5.29 billion.
The underlying volume of the M&A market (excluding the largest transactions worth $1 billion and above) decreased relative to 2023. In 2024, it amounted to $28.68 billion, 13.3% behind the previous year's figure. This is mainly due to lower asset values and non-market transactions. In ruble terms, the underlying market volume decreased less significantly due to fluctuations in the ruble exchange rate by 4.2% to 2.72 trillion rubles.
The participation of mutual funds in the purchase of assets has noticeably intensified in 2024. Analysts noted 13 such deals in 2024, including the largest. Their total volume amounted to $7.41 billion (13.7% of the total volume of transactions).
The cumulative share of transactions worth up to $50 million in the Russian M&A market in 2024 amounted to 73.3% of their total number and remains at an extremely low level compared to previous periods.
The share of government-related transactions in 2024 increased by 0.9 percentage points to 10.6% of the total from 9.7% a year earlier. The largest of them was concluded in transport: VTB Bank acquired the First Freight Company from Timur and Ruslan Babaev, with an estimated transaction value of $2,741.6 million.
The average value of transactions involving state-owned companies in 2024 decreased by 6.3% to $217.1 million. Although this indicator remains high, it does not reach the higher previous levels. At the same time, the average transaction value increased by 22.8% for private companies.
Read more about the results of the M&A market in issue No. 322... of the monthly bulletin "Market of Mergers and Acquisitions" of the AK&M News Agency.
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