Fewer Deals, Bigger Bets: How Indian Companies Are Buying Abroad

Fewer Deals, Bigger Bets: The Q2 2026 Divergence

The headline numbers from the second quarter of 2026 look contradictory until you read the detail. According to a Grant Thornton Bharat report carried by the news agency IANS on 6 July 2026, combined mergers, acquisitions and private equity deal value in India reached $36.3 billion, up 127% from the previous quarter.

Within that, M&A accounted for 240 transactions worth $27.9 billion. Volume fell 12% from the first quarter, yet value rose 302%. In other words, companies did fewer deals and each was far larger.

Where the Capital Flowed: Pharma, Manufacturing and Tech

The biggest single driver was outbound activity. Grant Thornton Bharat said outbound deals made up 84% of total M&A value in the quarter, and there were five cross-border acquisitions of $1 billion or more. The largest was an $11.8 billion overseas acquisition by an Indian pharmaceutical company, described in the report as the biggest outbound purchase ever by an Indian pharma firm.

The report's own wording about the quarter was that India's deal activity "reflected a divergence, with deal values rising sharply on the back of strategic outbound acquisitions," in the words of Shanthi Vijetha, a partner in growth at Grant Thornton Bharat.

By deal value, the leading sectors were pharma, healthcare and biotechnology ($13.7 billion), manufacturing ($3.5 billion), telecom ($3 billion) and infrastructure management ($2.9 billion). By number of deals, the busiest were retail and consumer (95), IT and IT-enabled services (80) and banking and financial services (62). That split is worth noticing: the big cheques went to a few sectors, while the day-to-day deal flow stayed in consumer, technology and finance.

“India's deal activity reflected a divergence.”

Contrasting Trends in Private Equity and Public Markets

Private equity activity moved the other way. The report counted 325 deals worth $8.4 billion, down 22% in volume and 8% in value from the previous quarter, with a larger average deal size. The largest PE transaction was a $1.6 billion acquisition of the Rajasthan Royals IPL franchise, and four new unicorns emerged.

Public markets were subdued: 11 IPOs raised $1.1 billion, while 16 qualified institutional placements raised $2.3 billion.

Different trackers measure different things, so readers will see other numbers for the first half of 2026. Headlines from separate reports put the half-year growth in India M&A at 21.7% in one case and 31% in another. We use the Grant Thornton Bharat quarterly figures here because we could read them in full.

Strategic Calculus: Buying Abroad vs Building at Home

The simplest reading is that the largest Indian companies now see acquisition abroad as a faster way to get technology, brands, regulatory approvals and customers than building them at home. That is our interpretation, not a finding of the report, but it fits the data.

When the domestic market is growing fast, a buyer can often grow by investing in capacity. Buying overseas is a different decision: it trades price for time.

Three Questions Before Signing & Mid-Sized Playbooks

Three questions follow for a management team. 1. What are we buying that we cannot build in time? A licence, a distribution network, a technology platform. If the answer is vague, the deal is probably a hope rather than a strategy. 2. Can we integrate it? Large cross-border deals fail more often on people and systems than on price. Plan the first hundred days before signing. 3. What is the downside case? Currency movements, regulatory changes and slower growth in the target's home market can all reduce returns.

A note for mid-sized firms: Most companies reading this will not be writing an eleven-billion-dollar cheque. But the data points to a more modest lesson. Deal flow by volume is concentrated in retail, IT and financial services, which suggests that a great deal of M&A in India is about smaller bolt-on purchases. A mid-sized manufacturer, for example, may find that buying a small competitor's order book or a niche technology is more realistic than a major overseas deal. The principle is the same: decide what gap you want to close, and test whether buying is quicker than building.

What to Watch & Long-Term Integration Disciplines

Quarterly deal numbers swing widely, so one strong quarter is not a trend. The next few reports will show whether outbound activity stays above 80% of value or reverts as the largest deals close. For now, the data tells a clear story about ambition and a more careful story about durability.

Editorial analysis. Figures are from the report named below; our reading is labelled as such.