Private equity placements are finding favour with India Inc with the number of such transactions surpassing that of merger and acquisition deals in the first month of this year.

Indian companies announced as many as 60 private equity deals as against 56 M&A transactions, according to the data compiled by global consultancy firm Grant Thornton.

However, the total value of PE deals was lower at $2.05 billion compared to $3.01 billion in M&As transactions.

During calender year 2007, the total number of M&A deals announced stood at around 661, while there were as many as 386 private equity deals during the same period.

The major M&A deals in January this year were Tata Chemicals [Get Quote] Limited's acquisition of US-based General Chemical Industrial Products Inc, and Great Offshore's [Get Quote] acquisition of SeaDragon Offshore.

In M&A space, the cross-border deals continued to outnumber the domestic transactions. While there were 18 domestic deals where both acquirer and target company were Indian with an announced value of $0.21 billion, there were 38 cross-border deals with an announced value of $2.80 billion.

Of the cross-border deals, 27 were outbound deals where Indian companies acquired businesses outside India with a value of $2.57 billion and 11 were inbound deals, wherein international companies or their subsidiaries acquired Indian businesses with an announced value of close to $0.23 billion.