Thus, Romania ranks 5th among the CSE countries, with 56 transactions in January-June 2016, down by nearly 30% compared with the first six months of 2015.
There were 655 closed transactions in the first half of 2016. The Czech Republic was the most active country in terms of deal volume, followed by Turkey, Poland, and Hungary, according to the report.
“As opposed to the same period of last year, when Unicredit Țiriac Bank was the largest transaction in all the CSE countries, this year we’ve experienced a bit of a slowing down, with fewer megadeals. However, the growing interest and the number of ongoing transactions will reverse the descending trend,” says Florin Vasilica, Leader of Transaction Advisory Services, EY Romania.
The total estimated transaction value in the first six months in the CSE market was $14.1 billion, 14.3% lower than in the previous year. This drop is mainly due to less mega deals over $1billion in this period. Although the overall transaction volume increased in the first six months of 2016, the majority of the countries were subject to a lower M&A activity in terms of the number of transactions.
The share of financial investors was the highest in Greece where financial investors were responsible for 40% of the market, followed by Hungary (39%) and Serbia (33%). In Romania, only 18% of investors were financial investors.
In Romania, the most active sector was manufacturing, while in the Czech Republic, Poland and Bulgaria, it was the IT.
Romania was not included in the top 10 largest transactions in the first half of the year, according to EY data.