Despite Reliance Group closing a slew of equity divestments in its telecom and retail arms to the tune of USD 23 billion in 2020, the overall inbound M&As failed to notch up the 2019 tally with the value falling 7 pc to USD 73.6 billion last year, according to a report.

Last year, outbound M&As touched USD 4.4 billion, up 58.4 pc compared to 2019 and over 80 pc of the money landed in US assets, according to a tally of Mergers & Acquisitions (M&As) by global financial markets data provider Refinitiv. Overall inbound deals faltered due to the pandemic, pulling down the deal value by 7 pc and down 11.5 pc in volume over 2019.

With USD 73.6 billion worth inbound deals, M&A value last year was way below the all-time high it scaled in 2018 at USD 132.2 billion and up from 2017 when it was at a low USD 58.3 billion, according to Elaine Tan, a senior analyst at Refinitiv. The numbers would have been much lower had it not been for the litany of deals by Reliance -- USD 16 billion into Jio and over USD6.4 billion into Reliance Retail.

However, domestic M&As dropped 12.4 pc in value to USD 36.8 billion while the number of announced domestic deals fell 11.5 pc from 2019. The biggest deal was by Facebook acquiring 9.9 pc stake in Jio Platforms for USD 5.7 billion through its subsidiary Jaadhu Holdings. Google International also acquired 7.73 pc stake in Jio for USD 4.5 billion.

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