Whilst a majority of corporate sectors have indeed posted increased sales for the first quarter in 2014 in Middle East and Africa (MEA), there are nonetheless a few sectors that have had a dip in their sales activities.
One of those few domains whose sales activities that have taken a hit in the first quarter of 2014 are the Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) sectors in the MEA region with sales deals dropping to half of their previous value. This statistic is quite startling especially when considered that the M&A sector was one of the highest gainers for the whole of last year.
Other major highlights from the latest report by M&A intelligence provider Mergermarket on Q1 2014 M&A trends:
- The first quarter valuation figures of M&A sector after the first quarter in the current year have reduced by about 50.4%
- Monetarily this means a reduction in M&A dealings’ valuation of about 23.14 billion dirham or US$ 6.3 billion as compared to the monetary statistics of the previous year’s M&A dealings’ valuation of about 46.24 billion dirham or US$ 12.6 billion in the same time-span
- As compared to 2013’s fourth quarter statistical tabulation for the M&A sector, there has been a decreased of nearly 60.4% that saw valuation of nearly US$ 16 billion
- The previously lowest statistical valuation of M&A dealings were last seen in the second quarter of 2009 with M&A deals valuing up to US$ four billion
- This figure is thus seen to be the most valuation decrease for the M&A sector in the last five years, extending back to 2009
- Mining, energy and utilities sector had a lot of dealings totaling to about US$ 1.2 billion but overall, their dealings still dipped to about 70% of their previous year’s dealings in the time-span
However despite these startling percentages and figures, the following positives also emerge in the M&A sector which give a lot of positivity about the overall performance of the domain. These positives include:
- Substantial investment in the technological domain totaling to about 71.4%
- Increase of nearly seven times in the consumers’ domain as compared to dealings in the same time-span in the previous year
It is expected that these underlying positives will tone and re-shape the trends for the Middle East and Africa’s mergers and acquisitions’ domain thereby allowing for greater depth and substantiality in their overall economic activities.
