ISSUE 1 | 2022
22
of investors led by the American Fund KKR & Co. Following on, the third biggest transaction was the acquisition of Palex Medical S.A., a Spanish company in the Consumer sector, by Fremman Capital, who purchased the stake for USD 466m. Additional deals worthy of a mention were the acquisition of Italian Business Services company Irideos S.p.A by the US private investment firm Grain Management LLC for USD 465m and the acquisition of the French Industrials & Chemicals company Orolia S.A.S by French company Safran S.A. for USD 451m. Looking at the quarter’s top 20 deals, Spanish companies were the most targeted with nine deals and accounted for a total deal value of USD 3.1bn. Following this were six French companies with a total deal value of USD 2.3bn and four Italian companies with a total value of USD 1.4bn. Finally, within Southern Europe’s top 20 mid-market deals, no one sector was dominant as transactions spanned multiple sectors, the most common being Energy, Mining & Utilities, followed by Industrials & Chemicals, Consumer and Pharma, Medical & Biotech.
sectors accounted for around 61% of all deals and were followed by Consumer, Business Services and Leisure with a total of 24 deals, a big drop compared to the previous quarter when the three sectors totalled 49 deals. This was mainly due to Business Services, which saw its deal flow fall from 26 to just seven deals in the quarter (down 73%). Consumer deal numbers fell by 38% between the two quarters, while Leisure remained at the same level. Finally, Financial Services, Pharma, Medical & Biotech and Real Estate represented 5.8%, 5.8% and 4% of total deal numbers respectively. The top 10 mid-market deals in Southern Europe totalled USD 4.4bn, which represented 32% of the quarter’s overall transactions. The biggest deal in value terms was the acquisition of a 21.28% stake in a Spanish company operating in the Business Services sector, Jobs and Talent, S.L., by a group of investors from a Swedish company and a British Fund, for USD 500m. The second biggest deal took place in the Consumer sector and saw the acquisition of the French company Groupe Soufflet S.A. for USD 498m by a group
much lower impact than in the preceding 2021 quarters (PE buyouts accounted for only 30% of the total deal value in Q4 2021 against an average of 39% for the previous three quarters in 2021). Finally, the average PE deal size for the quarter was very high at USD 121m, even higher than the very high average deal size of the preceding two quarters. In fact, the average PE deal size was one of the highest recorded in the last 13 years, confirming the trend that M&A deal-making generally slowed down in the final quarter of the year, with only the big deals keeping pace at the end of an extraordinary year. KEY SECTORS AND DEALS TMT confirmed its position as the most active sector in Southern Europe in 2021, accounting for 29 deals during Q4 2021 (151 in 2021 overall), which represented 28% of total mid-market deals, increasing from 26% of the previous quarter. In absolute terms, TMT deal numbers fell by a third compared to Q3 2021, when 43 deals were completed. TMT was followed by Industrials & Chemicals with 22 deals while Energy, Mining & Utilities, with 12 deals, accounted for 12% and was the only sector which an improved deal count from the preceding quarter. These top three
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