Total financial services industry deals for December 2019 worth $32bn were announced globally, according to GlobalData’s deals database.

The value marked a decrease of 23.7% over the previous month and a rise of 21.2% when compared with the last 12-month average of $26.4bn.

In terms of number of deals, the sector saw a drop of 2.4% over the last 12-month average with 286 deals against the average of 293 deals.

In value terms, Europe led the activity with deals worth $11.61bn.

Financial services industry deals in December 2019: Top deals

The top five financial services deals accounted for 47.7% of the overall value during December 2019.

The combined value of the top five financial services deals stood at $15.27bn, against the overall value of $32bn recorded for the month.

The top five financial services industry deals of December 2019 tracked by GlobalData were:

1) New York Life Insurance’s $6.3bn asset transaction with Cigna

2) The $4.27bn acquisition of ReAssure Group by Phoenix Group Holdings

3) FOINS BLOCKCHAIN’s $2.1bn acquisition of AliExchange

4) The $1.35bn acquisition of PT Bank Permata by Bangkok Bank Public

5) Resolution Life Holdings’ asset transaction with Voya Financial for $1.25bn.

Verdict deals analysis methodology

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. The term ‘acquisition’ refers to both completed deals and those in the bidding stage.

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.