Indian M&A hits all-time high in 2018 with deals worth $125 billion

Walmart's purchase of Flipkart sees M&A deal values double from $63 bn a year ago

Deals including the acquisition of online retailer Flipkart by American shopping giant Walmart made this the biggest year for mergers and acquisitions involving Indian companies on record.

The total value of transactions was $125.2 billion, according to data compiled by market-tracker Thomson Reuters Deals Intelligence. Data is as of December 14. This is nearly twice the $63.2 billion seen in the previous year.

The retail segment which included Flipkart was third with deals worth $18.3 billion. Other segments included materials and financials. Materials took the lion's share by sector, accounting for over a fifth of overall deal values. 

The targets