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Boom & Gloom? CMS European M&A Outlook 2023

Europe
17/10/2022
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We are pleased to share with you the 2023 edition of the European M&A Outlook published by CMS in association with Mergermarket.

The report offers a comprehensive assessment of dealmaking sentiment in Europe’s M&A market and reflects the opinions of 330 corporates and PE firms based in Europe, the Americas and APAC about their expectations for the year ahead.

This year, against a challenging backdrop, deal makers are remarkably bullish. Despite economic headwinds, repercussions of the war in Ukraine, vendor/acquiror valuation gaps and a challenging financing environment, most respondents expect European M&A activity to increase over the next year and the majority have deals on the horizon.

Key findings of the report include:

  • M&A expectation are running high: 73% of deal makers expect the level of European M&A activity to increase over the next 12 months, compared to just 53% last year. Almost all are currently considering M&A.
  • Undervalued targets and distressed sales to drive activity: the biggest buy-side driver is expected to be the availability of undervalued deal targets, whilst on the sell-side it is expected to be distressed situations.
  • Cost of financing will increase: 87% of deal makers expect financing to be tighter compared with 2021 – this includes 45% who expect it to be much harder.
  • ESG rises up the M&A agenda: 90% of respondents expect ESG scrutiny in their dealmaking to increase over the next three years, compared to 72% in 2021’s survey. The proportion expecting it to increase significantly has nearly doubled.

Our features in this year’s report include an editorial on the rise of ESG in M&A, an analysis of trends in post-M&A disputes, and a spotlight on M&A in the Nordics region.

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