São Paulo – From January to March of this year, foreign companies acquired 90 Brazilian companies, according to a survey by KMPG. The overall number of mergers and acquisitions climbed 15% in Brazil in this year’s Q1 over the same months of 2017 and transactions involving foreign companies came in second in the number of transactions in the period.
According to the consulting firm, the number of mergers and acquisitions was the best for a quarter in the last two decades. From January to March 2018, 234 transactions took place.
In comparison to last year’s last quarter, the number declined slightly, since from October to December there were 246 merger or acquisition operations. “The last quarter had been the best seen since the beginning of our survey, which means that this year’s first quarter was really encouraging,” said KPMG partner, Luis Motta.
Most of the mergers and acquisitions – 109 – involved local companies buying local companies. The third most common type of transaction involved a foreign company buying, from another foreign group, a company established in Brazil – 14 acquisitions.
There were eight cases of a Brazilian company acquiring, from foreigners, a company abroad, and other eight cases in which a Brazilian company bought, from a foreign group, a company in Brazil. There were also five purchases in which a foreign company bought, from a local group, a business abroad.
The highlights of the quarter were the e-companies, with 38 deals, followed by those of information technology, with 26, and oil and gas companies (picture above), with 24 mergers or acquisitions.
“The oil and gas sector drove up the number of transactions this year over 2017. These were deals signed in the industry’s auctions held by the government recently. In addition to this, the survey showed that the domestic market remained hot and led in this type of transactions in the last three months,” said Motta.
Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
