Mergers and Acquisitions Between Russia and OECD Members Collapse

The number of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) taking place between Russian companies and companies located in countries included in the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) have come to an almost complete standstill as a result of the latest political events surrounding the crisis in Crimea. In 2015, only 43 M&A transactions took place between Western and Russian businesses, fewer than ever since data collection began. These are the findings of calculations by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) based on the Zephyr database of Bureau van Dijk (BvD).

In 2014, 129 deals were completed. The latest development therefore equates to a 67 per cent decrease within one year. Even in 2012, the year which previously had the lowest number of M&As on record, 83 mergers and acquisitions took place, double the number seen in 2015.

Things seem even more drastic if one considers the aggregated financial volume of all completed M&A transactions. Whilst the volume of deals in 2014 totalled 4.23 billion euros, which was already the lowest recorded aggregated transaction value since records began, this value fell by more than 90 per cent in 2015. The financial volume of deals has fallen to 339 million euros. This development is not, however, exclusively a result of political tension and investors' fears of an increase in sanctions imposed by the European Union on Russia.

Over the last years, several of the large deals with Russian involvement, such as the acquisition of the Canadian nickel corporation Lionore by the Russian firm Norilsk Nickel in 2007 (3.8 billion euro), or the 50 per cent participation of the Russian oil corporation Rosneft in the Germany-based firm Ruhr Öl in 2010 (1.6 billion euros, now in the process of being dissolved), took place in the commodities sector. For some time past, this sector has been in crisis and has just recently undergone significant consolidation.

For further information please contact

Sven Heim, Phone +49 (0)621 1235-183, E-mail heim@zew.de