After a lull in the merger and acquisition space, big ticket deals are dominating the global M&A segment with as many as five separate billion-dollar deals worth $ 26.7 billion being announced in a single day.

"There were five deals above $ 1 billion announced on April 20, the highest number in a single day since October 13 2008, when 10 such deals were announced driven by the Government bailouts of the UK banks," global deal tracking firm Dealogic said.

Though there is a 14 per cent decline in volume of big merger and acquisition deals so far this year but there has been a significant upsurge in big-ticket transactions.

"Volume of M&A deals above $ 1 billion reached $ 449.3 billion so far this year, down 14 per cent from $ 521.1 billion in the corresponding period a year ago," Dealogic said adding "however they account for 68 per cent of the total volume, compared to 46 per cent in 2008 YTD."

The largest deal that was announced on April 20 was the PepsiCo's acquisitions of additional stakes in Pepsi Bottling Group and PepsiAmericas for a total of $ 13.3 billion.

Besides, the other large deals that was announced include Oracle's acquisition of Sun Microsystems for $ 7.4 billion after the collapsed discussions with IBM, and acquisition of Stiefel Laboratories by GlaxoSmithKline for $ 3.6 billion, which is in line with this year's increasing trend in healthcare M&A.

Healthcare was the most targeted segment as deals worth $ 126.8 billion were announced so far this year in this category. The healthcare space saw a four-fold jump in deal volume at $ 126.8 billion, up from $ 28 billion in 2008 year to date.

After healthcare, finance was the most targeted segment, which accounted for deals worth $ 125.8 billion while the utility and energy space cornered transactions worth $ 46.7 billion.

A nation wise analysis shows that the US is the most targeted nation with deals worth $ 224 billion, followed by the UK which attracted $ 37.5 billion worth of transactions and Germany followed suit with $ 28.7 billion deals.

JPMorgan leads the M&A advisory ranking for deals above $ 1 billion so far this year with $ 201.9 billion, followed by Morgan Stanley with $ 188.7 billion and Goldman Sachs with $ 180.2 billion.

Meanwhile, some of the other top deals announced on April 20 include GlaxoSmithKline's $ 3.6 billion deal with Stiefel Laboratories and BTG Investments's $ 2.5 billion acquisition with UBS Pactual.