Key Contacts: Eoghan Doyle – Partner  |  Andrew Tzialli – Partner

We are delighted to introduce the fifth edition of the Philip Lee M&A Insights guide. In this edition, we review deal activity across H1 2023, and consider the outlook for the rest of the year ahead.

This guide has been created in partnership with Experian, the global information services company using their comprehensive database of business and financial information which monitors and tracks the behaviour of businesses in the UK and Ireland. The insight is generated from processing over 60 million records a month, taken from over 600 of the latest and most up-to-date sources of UK and international business data. This data is trusted and used daily by over 35,000 organisations to inform their business decision making. The Experian database utilised for this guide holds more than 600,000 global M&A transaction, supported by data from more than 250 of the world’s foremost professional advisory firms.

M&A activity in Ireland in 2023 remained relatively strong, with the volume of deals remaining above pre-2020 levels but slowing in comparison to 2022. Continuing with previous trends, Companies from the UK and USA remained the most focused on making deals with Irish companies. As for buoyant sectors, the information and communication sector rose to be the most prominent sector for deal activity. The value of inward deals has increased dramatically, up 71% year on year.

As was expected, activity in the UK has declined so far this year due to a challenging regulatory environment, delayed Brexit impacts, inflation and increasing costs. The majority of deals have been in the small to mid-market value range. That said, UK companies continue to hold significant international appeal and overseas interests in UK publicly-listed companies has risen significantly, reporting one of the highest figures recorded by Experian. Tech and professional, scientific and technical services continue to perform well and were the leading sectors for overseas investment by UK companies.

Please click here to download the full guide.