Africa's International M&A Investments Surge in 2022

When thinking about mergers and acquisitions involving companies based in Africa, the assumption would often be that the acquired firm was African, or that the larger merger partner came from outside of the continent. While statistically speaking, this guess would be well-grounded, African companies are no strangers to being on the longer end of the lever - and as this infographic illustrates, that hasn't been more the case in 2022 than for a number of years.

Data from the White & Case M&A Explorer indicates that in terms of M&A investment value outside of the continent by African companies, 2022 has been a stand out year so far. The energy, mining and utilities sector saw the largest investment value ($7.7b) with African companies as the bidders in 2022. Pharma, medical and biotech was somewhat behind in second place ($5.1b).

South African companies led the way in 2022 in terms of total deal value ($14b) and deal volume (19), while the highest value of all closed deals were made with Canadian and UAE companies.