By Sarah Turner, MarketWatch
SYDNEY (MarketWatch) — The volume of mergers-and-acquisitions and other deals targeted at the Asia-Pacific region jumped 29% year-to-date as of Friday, to $146.3 billion, according to Dealogic.
The data provider said that the preliminary figures for the first quarter showed the period’s best announced deal volume for the region since 2008, when $155 billion of announced deals were recorded.
Dealogic said that U.K. oil giant BP PLC’s (UK:BP. 483.55, 0.00, 0.00%) (BP 46.87, +0.06, +0.13%) $9 billion takeover of India-based Reliance Industries’ oil-and-gas blocks in February was the largest deal for the region in the quarter.
Goldman Sachs (GS 157.97, -1.94, -1.21%) led the advisory ranking table, Dealogic said, with $43.1 billion of deals so far in the first quarter, followed by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM 45.86, +0.13, +0.28%) on $29 billion and Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAC 13.34, -0.14, -1.04%) on $27.3 billion.
China-targeted M&A volume declined 7% year-on-year to $36.9 billion, India-targeted deals more than doubled to $18.5 billion, Japan-targeted M&A volume rose 51% to $32.9 billion, and Australian-targeted M&A volume rose 59% to $18.8 billion, with mining-sector deals totaling $7.5 billion.
The performance in Asia helped bring global deal volume totals to $737 billion from Jan. 1 to March 25, up 23% from the first quarter of 2010, when $597.7 billion of deals were announced, Dealogic said its preliminary figures showed.
