BANGLADESH Law and Practice Contributed by: A B M Nasirud Doulah and Amina Khatoon, Doulah & Doulah
Doulah & Doulah Head Office: Doulah House Plot-153/2 Rd-2/2, Mirpur-12A
Dhaka 1216 Bangladesh Corporate Office: L7, Tropical Maanco Tower 112 Gulshan Badda Link Rd
Dhaka 1212 Bangladesh Tel: +880 1711 5060 15 Fax: +880 2801 6442 Email: ndoulah@doulah.com Web: www.doulah.net
1. Trends 1.1 M&A Market
trends suggest that investors are regaining their confidence in the market and transactions are going to supersede the earlier pace very soon. 1.2 Key Trends Although quieter than 2024, the Bangladesh M&A market in 2025 is showing impressive lev - els of deal making, aided by a better regulatory environment and driven by continued business confidence and investor optimism about a reduc - tion in corruption and long-term political stability following the turmoil in 2024. Some major trends in recent times include the following. • Asset-based deals – in Bangladesh most acquisitions are led by mid-market and conglomerate buyers, and the acquisition of shares has been the most adopted structure. However, asset-based acquisition has been gaining popularity in recent years due to stronger enforcement of bad debts by local banks and a reduction in transaction costs for asset-based deals. The sale of business undertakings is also gaining popularity.
While Bangladesh offers a liberal M&A regime and almost zero restrictions on country-specific foreign direct investment (FDI), the market of around 200 million consumers still operates an underdeveloped M&A market. Compared to global deals that involve M&A of assets located in Bangladesh, actual deals in local context are still outnumbered. However, as the country has become an attractive destination for FDI, which suggests that there is still ample space in the market, as a consequence, there has been rap - id growth in the number of M&A transactions in Bangladesh in recent times. As a result of a forced political regime change in Bangladesh in 2024, there was an instant down - trend in deal completions as investors under - took “wait and see” strategy. The credit rating of Bangladesh was lowered during the turmoil by major institutions like Fitch, S&P and Moody’s for fear of political instability. However, recent deal
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