Led by $1.07bn private equity deal with AMP, Australia’s financial services industry saw a drop of 9.57% in overall deal activity during Q1 2021, when compared with the last four-quarter average, according to GlobalData’s deals database.

A total of 26 deals worth $1.9bn were announced in Q1 2021, compared with the last four-quarter average of 28.75 deals.

M&A was the leading category in the quarter with 20 deals which accounted for 76.9% of all deals.

In second place was venture financing with four deals, followed by private equity with two transactions, respectively accounting for 15.4% and 7.7% of overall deal activity in the Australia’s financial services industry during the quarter.

In terms of value of deals, private equity was the leading deal category in Australia’s financial services industry with total deals worth $1.07bn, while M&A and venture financing deals totalled $685.05m and $141.38m respectively.

Australia financial services industry deals in Q1 2021: Top deals

The top five financial services industry deals accounted for 78.7% of the overall value during Q1 2021.

The combined value of the top five financial services deals stood at $1.49bn, against the overall value of $1.9bn recorded for the quarter.

The top five financial services industry deals of Q1 2021 tracked by GlobalData were:

1) Ares Management’s $1.07bn private equity deal with AMP

2) The $230.65m acquisition of Latitude Financial Services Australia Holdings by Shinsei Bank

3) ANZi Ventures, Greenoaks Capital Management, Grok Ventures and Skip Capital’s $100m acquisition of Airwallex

4) The $80.52m venture financing deal with Shimao Aoya Holding by Comic Eagle

5) Alceon Group and Carthona Capital FS’s acquisition of Deferit for $11.55m.