The M&A market with a threshold of $1 million in July-August 2022 significantly decreased against the result of the previous year. The total value of transactions decreased by 2.5 times, amounting to $2.87 billion against $7.31 billion a year earlier. This is stated in the bulletin "Mergers and Acquisitions Market" of the AK&M News Agency (issue N293-294).
During the reporting period, 77 transactions took place, and 98 a year earlier. In ruble terms, the amount of transactions decreased by 3.1 times to 174.91 billion rubles from 535.88 billion rubles. In addition, no transactions worth more than $1 billion have been recorded in these two months.
The largest transaction took place in mining — in August, UMMC completed a deal to acquire 79.9% of the large gold miner Susumanzoloto from the heiresses of the deceased founder of the company, Vladimir Hristov, for an estimated $300 million.
At the same time, many large transactions that were planned to be completed in the current period or past months were postponed to a later period or canceled altogether.
After the publication of the decree of the President of the Russian Federation, which banned Western investors in the fuel and energy sector from leaving the Russian business without special permission until December 31, the deal of Finnish Fortum, which, like many other Western investors, planned to get rid of its Russian assets (first of all, PJSC Fortum), was postponed, among other things. The ban also affected the Russian assets of Siemens Energy, which had previously planned to sell its Russian turbine business (Siemens Gas Turbine Technologies and Siemens Energetics) to Inter RAO.
Separately, it is worth noting transactions that, when the asset is located on the territory of Russia, and the buyer is a Russian resident, but the seller is a foreign investor. In July-August, 15 out of 77 such transactions were recorded — this is 19.4% of the total number of transactions of the period. The total value of such transactions amounted to $639.6 million, which is 22.3% of the total value of transactions in July—August. It should be noted that companies from the USA, the Czech Republic and Finland were the most active in leaving the Russian market.
In July-August, assets in construction and development continued to play a significant role — 42.9% of the total number of transactions took place in this industry, although the volume of transactions here is gradually decreasing. In a crisis, real estate remains one of the most reliable ways to save money, but large assets have already been consolidated, and small objects fall into the perimeter of investors' attention.
Read more about the results of the M&A market in issue N293-294 of the bulletin "Mergers and Acquisitions Market" of the AK&M News Agency.
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