Total US banking industry M&A deals in Q4 2018 worth $5.98bn were announced, according to GlobalData’s deals database.

The value marked a decrease of 35.3% over the previous quarter and a drop of 27.6% when compared with the last four-quarter average of $8.29bn.

The United States held a 43.3% share of the global banking industry M&A deal value that totalled $13.8bn in Q4 2018.

In terms of deal activity, the United States recorded 64 deals during Q4 2018, marking a rise of 4.9% over the previous quarter and a flat growth over the last four-quarter average.

US banking industry M&A deals in Q4 2018: Top deals

The top five banking industry M&A deals accounted for 75.6% of the overall value during Q4 2018.

The combined value of the top five banking industry M&A deals stood at $4.52bn, against the overall value of $5.98bn recorded for the quarter. The top announced banking industry M&A deal tracked by GlobalData in Q4 2018 was Hunter Maritime Acquisition’s $2bn acquisition of NCF Wealth.

In second place was the $881.62m merger of Ameris Bancorp and Fidelity Southern and in third place was $850.4m merger of CenterState Banks and National Commerce.

The $500m acquisition of Access National by Union Bankshares and merger of First Merchants and MBT Financial for $290.9m 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.

More in-depth reports and analysis on all reported deals are available for subscribers to GlobalData’s deals database.