Private equity investments in India amounted to $1.7 billion last month, taking the overall PE deal tally to $10.2 billion in the first 10 months of this year, says a Grant Thornton report.

According to the assurance, tax and advisory firm, PE deal values and volumes in October surpassed the levels seen during the same month of the earlier years and were also among the highest in a month this year.

As many as six deals valued over $100 million each were reported during October, which in turn boosted the PE deal tally significantly.

From January-October this year, there were 500 PE deals amounting to $10.2 billion, up 18 per cent in value terms and 37 per cent in terms of number of deals in 2013.

“We are seeing a strong rebound in M&A and PE deal activity with investor confidence on a rebound,” Grant Thornton India LLP Partner Raja Lahiri said.

“In the private equity space, e-commerce has witnessed maximum investments. A new trend that we are seeing is in the gold jewellery segment, with Warburg’s investment of $200 million in Kalyan Jewellers,” he said.

A sector-wise analysis shows that the IT & ITeS sector attracted the maximum number of deals amounting to $785.2 million, followed by the retail and consumer sector which saw seven transactions worth $438.6 million.

“Sectors, which have seen deal uptick, include IT/ITES/e-commerce and healthcare. Inbound transactions from Japan have been growing with Softbank investing in Snapdeal and Olacabs in October 2014,” Lahiri said.

He added: “We expect this trend to continue across other sectors as well.”

Top PE deals in October include, Softbank-Snapdeal transaction worth $627 million, followed by $210-million Softbank-Olacabs deal and Warburg Pincus, the US-based private equity firm’s 24 per cent stake acquisition in Kalyan Jewellers for $195.6 million, the report said.

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