Russia’s Domestic M&A Activity Up 54%: 2025 Performance Update

Russia’s domestic Mergers and Acquisition (M&A) market has risen in Q2 2025, with the volume of deals reaching ₽907 billion (US$11.3 billion). According to analysts, this is due to expectations of the Central Bank of Russia easing its monetary policy, while the outflow of foreign investors from Russia has also created opportunities. Russian investors also expanded their presence in overseas markets. Generally speaking, a healthy M&A market is positive news as it illustrates that private equity is being invested into the economy and mergers taking place to create stronger business entities due to encouraging market conditions.

According to the results of Q2 2025, Russian M&A transactions valued above ₽80 million (US$1 million) increased by 54% compared to Q1, while the average deal has remained around ₽7.4 billion (US$93 million) over the past three quarters. The largest volumes of M&A transactions were recorded in the transport, construction, and services industries, with the largest Q2 transaction being the purchase by Rosselkhozbank of 50% of Avito, (a Russian classifieds advertising website) for an estimated ₽9.6 billion (US$1.2 billion).

There has also been an increase in the number of cross-border transactions. In Q1 2025, companies from France, Germany, the United States, Austria, and the Netherlands left the Russian market, however, Russian investors also acquired foreign assets, with a growing trend for acquisitions in friendly countries gaining momentum, especially in metallurgy and mining. For example, in May, Rusalsigned an agreement to purchase the Indian alumina refinery Pioneer Aluminum Industries for ₽37 billion (US$468.8 million).

The second largest deal was in the IT sector – Veon Holdings acquired the taxi aggregator service Uklon for ₽12.4 billion (US$155 million), while Solidcore Resources acquired a controlling stake in the Tokhtar gold deposits in Kazakhstan for ₽2 billion (US$25 million).

Russian companies have also been purchased by foreign investors, with most of these transactions during 2025 related to the purchase of assets directly in Russia, while during 2024, foreign investors mainly acquired Russian overseas assets.

The re-emergence of the M&A market is the result of the international situation becoming more stable for Russian investors, who have now become familiar with dealing with sanctions risks, and ways to mitigate against them. Russian companies are also looking to diversify their resource base and supply chains to reduce their continuing dependence on overseas vendors from unfriendly Western countries.

By the end of 2024, the Russian M&A market had returned to the pre-conflict 2021 figures in terms of the number of transactions, with expectations that the domestic market will continue to grow during 2025 and into 2026. The Russian overseas market would only see a significant increase in cross-border transactions should changes in macroeconomic and especially external conditions, such as the easing of sanctions, occur. take place. Cross-border M&A will take place more often within the CIS and would be associated with diversification and reducing sanctions risks.