Corporate M&A fell sharply in 2012, with Korean Air's acquisition of Asiana being the only large-scale deal - South Korea

CEO Score, a company that conducts corporate data research, recently conducted a survey on the M&A status of 361 companies that published quarterly reports in the July-September period among the top 500 companies in Korea by sales revenue over the past three years.
This survey excludes cases where the acquisition has not been completed or the planned date for the acquisition of shares has not been decided. The size of M&A investments completed in 2024 is expected to total 8.5808 trillion yen, down 39.3% from the previous year.
The total number of deals was 50, a sharp drop from the previous year's 87. Of these, the largest M&A deal worth over 1 trillion won (approximately 106.9235 billion yen) was with Korean Air.
Kakao, which has been active in M&A, will only make one acquisition in 2024, with 15 deals in 2022 and eight in 2023. Similarly, S
Neither K nor Naver made any notable acquisitions. The company that made the most M&A was electrical equipment manufacturer LS Electric. The company acquired transformer manufacturer KOC Electric for 59.2 billion won.
In total, the company has acquired five companies, including liquefied natural gas company E1, chemical giant SK Chemical, and DB General Insurance, each with two deals.
Thirty-three companies, including defense giant Hanwha Aerospace, have each carried out one M&A deal.