Corporate Talk

International

Welcome to the Winter edition of Corporate TALK.

There is no doubt that the Eurozone uncertainties continue to affect M&A deals in the UK and across Europe. According to Mergermarket, the number of M&A deals across Europe in our key sectors in both the mid-market and high end markets fell considerably during Q3 – European M&A was back at the same activity levels last seen in Q2 2009 when the financial crisis was at its peak.

It is true that we were expecting deal activity to slip in Q3 as Olympic fever took hold and while the number of completed transactions overall was low, throughout Q3 our Corporate team was still very busy, especially in certain of our key sectors like Energy and Financial Services. We continue to be very busy well into Q4 also.

Deals are taking longer to close and are still prone to collapse, but the appetite is still there for the right opportunity along with the financing – albeit often in less conventional forms. Overall the market is extremely challenging and likely to remain that way in 2013 for all bar a small number of sectors and particularly attractive targets.

This edition of Corporate TALK features some of the issues that we have been discussing with our clients recently.