Moscow Times 26 Mar 2012
The Russian mergers and acquisition market posted a drop last year against a global decline in M&A activity, while foreign purchases of Russian assets stayed almost the same.
Overall Russian M&A activity totaled $71.1 billion in 2011, global audit and consulting firm KPMG said in its annual report on the M&A market. Almost a third of that amount was transacted by just a handful of companies: social media investor Digital Sky Technologies, state gas monopoly Gazprom, Novolipetsk Steel and VTB Bank. The 21 deals made by those companies came to $23.1 billion.
Compared with $95.6 billion in total deal value the previous year, the 2011 total dropped 28 percent. Worldwide, the value of M&A activity decreased by about 6 percent.
By a different measure, however, Russia’s drop-off is more in line with global figures. Peter Latos, a director of transactions and restructuring for KPMG in Russia, said the 2010 total was “exceptional” given a $20.7 billion acquisition by Russian telecoms giant VimpelCom. If that acquisition is omitted from 2010 figures, then the 2011 deal value decreases only 8 percent, he said in a telephone interview.
The Moscow Times