Total banking industry deals in January 2019 worth $8.12bn were announced globally, according to GlobalData’s deals database.

The value marked a decrease of 2.81% over the previous month and a drop of 2.95% when compared with the last 12-month average of $8.37bn.

In terms of number of deals, the sector saw a rise of 18.46% over the last 12-month average with 77 deals against the average of 66 deals.

In value terms, Middle East and Africa led the activity with deals worth $3.99bn.

Banking industry deals in January 2019: Top deals

The top five banking deals accounted for 81.58% of the overall value in the sector globally during January 2019.

The combined value of the top five banking deals stood at $6.63bn, against the overall value of $8.12bn recorded for the month. The top announced banking deal tracked by GlobalData in January 2019 was $3.99bn merger of Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank and Union National Bank.

In second place was merger of Bandhan Bank and GRUH Finance for $1.68bn and in third place was the $408.69m merger of Getin Noble Bank and Idea Bank.

The $291.16m merger of Entegra Financial and SmartFinancial, and Cerberus Capital Management’s private equity deal with Unicaja Banco for $261.29m held fourth and fifth positions, respectively.

This analysis considers only announced and completed deals from the GlobalData financial deals database and excludes all terminated and rumoured deals. Country and industry are defined according to the headquarters and dominant industry of the target firm.

GlobalData tracks real-time data concerning all merger and acquisition, private equity/venture capital and asset transaction activity around the world from thousands of company websites and other reliable sources.

Verdict’s parent company GlobalData plc provides business information to 4,000 of the world’s largest companies.