Total retail industry deals in Q4 2018 worth $12.09bn were announced, according to GlobalData’s deals database.

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The value marked an increase of 148.8% over the previous quarter and a rise of 13% when compared with the last four-quarter average of $10.7bn.

In terms of number of deals, the sector saw a rise of 23.91% over the last four-quarter average with 171 deals against the average of 138 deals.

In value terms, North America led the activity with deals worth $7.61bn.

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Retail industry deals in Q4 2018: Top deals

The top five retail deals accounted for 88% of the overall value in the sector globally during Q4 2018.

The combined value of the top five retail deals stood at $10.62bn, against the overall value of $12.09bn recorded for the quarter.

The top announced retail deal tracked by GlobalData in Q4 2018 was ESL Investments,’s $5.2bn private equity deal with Sears.

In second place was SoftBank‘s $2bn private equity deal with Coupang and in third place was FamilyMart UNY Holdings Co’s $1.88bn stake acquisition of Don Quijote Holdings Co.

K2018535347 (South Africa) Proprietary’s $790.32m acquisition of Verimark Holdings and  Fung Retailing’s acquisition of Toys R Us Asia and Toys R Us Japan for $760m held fourth and fifth positions, respectively.

This analysis considers only announced and completed deals from the GlobalData financial deals database and excludes all terminated and rumoured deals. Country and industry are defined according to the headquarters and dominant industry of the target firm.

GlobalData tracks real-time data concerning all merger and acquisition, private equity/venture capital and asset transaction activity around the world from thousands of company websites and other reliable sources.

Verdict’s parent company GlobalData plc provides business information to 4,000 of the world’s largest companies.