India – Coming of age

Retaining its position as a bright spot in the global M&A landscape, India’s M&A market in 2025 experienced a pronounced resurgence, with total deal value (including outbound) up 12%, reaching approximately US$115 billion. Despite the persistent global headwinds and tariff-related uncertainties, the Indian M&A market has continued its growth over the last three years, although with certain momentary pauses. This momentum was underpinned by heightened sector consolidation, a notable rise in outbound transactions and consistently strong levels of inbound investment.

Cross-border M&A activity in India during 2025 was shaped predominantly by acquisitions by global corporates and infusions of strategic capital. Japanese financial institutions emerged as active inbound participants, led by Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group’s US$4.4 billion investment in Shriram Finance and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation’s US$1.6 billion investment in YES Bank. Strategic activity remained strong, with JSW Paints' acquisition of a majority stake in Akzo Nobel, and Torrent Pharmaceuticals' acquisition of a controlling stake in JB Chemicals from a KKR affiliate, reflecting long‑term confidence in India’s credit and consumption growth. Middle Eastern investors also played a meaningful role, highlighted by Emirates NBD’s approximately US$3 billion acquisition of a controlling stake in RBL Bank and Abu Dhabi–based IHC’s investment in Sammaan Capital, highlighting India’s continued appeal for strategic inbound capital notwithstanding global market volatility.  

Large deals continued to shape India’s M&A landscape in 2025, with multiple transactions exceeding the US$1 billion threshold, including Capgemini’s US$3.3 billion acquisition of WNS Holdings, one of the largest technology‑sector buyouts of the year.

An additional feature of cross-border activity was the rise of the global capability centre, which has emerged as a big market for India, heightened by geopolitical drivers, making India's GCC market worth over US$70 billion. 

Financial sponsor-led activity was slightly softer when it came to investments into India which is thematic with the global trend, but they continue to see exit opportunities with a number of deals completed in 2025 (such as EQT and Temasek's sale of O2 Power to JSW) and in the pipeline. Overall, they contributed close to one‑third of total deal value for Indian targets, reflecting the continuing importance of private capital in India Inc's deals market with more India focused funds and with a greater allocation to India in Asia funds (pivoting away from China). Private equity will continue to play an important role. The nature of their investments vary – for example smaller stakes in bigger companies, coinvest with strategics etc. 

Sectors

Financial services, energy and infrastructure, technology and healthcare were the clear leaders in terms of deal value in 2025, while the consumer sector remained the most active by transaction volume. With the relaxation of the insurance market and India's growth in financial services space, the year featured a series of high-profile bank and insurance mergers, as well as sustained interest from global private equity and sovereign investors in India’s rapidly evolving fintech and digital finance ecosystem. 

The technology sector had another strong year as is usual for the Indian M&A market – while Indian firm Coforge's US$2.35 billion acquisition of US-based Encora took the top prize in terms of deal value, it is worth noting that Coforge also undertook various other smaller acquisitions in 2025, which goes to show the increasingly acquisitive and expansionist approach of Indian companies. The impact of the AI boom was also clearly visible, with a number of deals now focused on acquiring AI‑ready platforms and solutions, including the Encora deal above. 

The energy sector continued to witness strong deal activity in line with previous years' trends centred around renewables. Notable deals included TPG's acquisition of Siemens' wind business in India, and, domestically, Sembcorp's joint venture with Bharat Petroleum in the green hydrogen space.

Pharma and healthcare remained a hotbed for private equity investment, with major players like Advent and KKR actively participating in the market and a number of smaller PE firms also making inbound investments into India. Some of the notable deals this year included ADIA's US$200 million investment in Micro Life Sciences, and Aurobindo's acquisition of US pharma company Lannett for US$250 million. We expect Indian pharma companies to diversify beyond generics and into speciality, with more outbound deals to come in 2026. 

Deal activity in the defence sector is also heating up globally, and with Indian conglomerates keen to take a piece of the pie, we could expect activity to pick up in the Indian market over the coming year – see for example Wipro's acquisition of French aerospace major Lauak Group. Indian defence companies will also likely be increasingly targeted, as we have already seen in 2025, with deal volumes up 60% in this sector.

Legal and regulatory trends

India’s legal and regulatory environment for M&A continued to evolve in 2025, reflecting the country’s ambition to align with global best practices and the realities of a more complex, high-value deal environment.

The government has over the last few years clearly stated its intention to make India a more business-friendly destination for investors and, in line with this, a number of further reforms have been enacted in the foreign investment regime, including opening up the insurance sector fully to FDI, with various other sectors under consideration for further liberalisation, including notably defence.  

Reforms to the corporate law regime over the last few years are starting to take shape, notably with the new cross-border share swap rules brought in 2024 starting to be leveraged in transactions. 

Significant relaxations to the foreign debt landscape may also be forthcoming which would help fuel M&A – the Reserve Bank of India has recently published draft rules for comment, which envisage removing end-use restrictions for foreign debt, replacing the current US$750 million cap with a more flexible limit, and expanding the permitted currency denomination of foreign borrowing. 

The adoption of W&I insurance in Indian transactions is seeing an uptick, with the (albeit nascent) market starting to see growth. 

Outlook for 2026

The Indian M&A market is expected to remain resilient in 2026, as a result of a combination of factors – including foreign investment reform, which will help support FDI, along with continuing private equity interest in the Indian market, particularly as valuation multiples settle back closer to historic norms. The IPO market remains active, and deal pipelines look strong. Indian companies, ranging from family-owned businesses to conglomerates, are expected to remain acquisitive and on the lookout for investment opportunities at home and abroad.

A number of drivers continue to influence the Indian market – financing is starting to become simpler, with strong capital markets enabling quick qualified institutional placements, and acquisition financing becoming more accessible. The government's push to streamline regulatory approval processes for FDI and competition approvals will also be key to maintaining India's share of the global M&A market. Free trade agreements with other countries will also likely have a positive impact on cross-border M&A transactions in 2026. 

Although India has gone from strength to strength in the last decade, factors tempering against very high levels of deal activity will likely be geopolitical considerations and residual concerns around whether India's economy is growing fast enough at present, and critically in the right areas, to sustain strong GDP growth over the next decade. 

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