Issue A handful of outsized deals dominate value in a market that is 1.2% of global transactions

Summary

This issue warns that merger and acquisition figures for the six Southeast Asian growth markets can be distorted by single deals. The six together accounted for only about 1.2 percent of global M&A transactions from 2017 to 2024. With so small a base, one large transaction can substantially change a year's or a country's investment value. The report's example is the $18 billion merger of ride-hailing firm Gojek and e-commerce firm Tokopedia in Indonesia, which markedly lifted total M&A value in 2021. Such deals are kept in the analysis as a defining feature of these markets, but the report cautions against reading annual swings in deal value as a trend.