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Market Tracker’s latest trend report, Trends in UK Public M&A deals in H1 2019, examines the current trends in the UK public mergers and acquisitions (M&A) market. The report includes in-depth analysis of the 33 firm offers, 18 possible offers, five formal sale processes and one strategic review announced between 1 January 2019 and 30 June 2019 and provides insight into what we might expect to see in the second half of 2019 and beyond.

Highlights of the report:

• Detailed statistical deal data for H1 2019, including transaction structure and consideration
• Comparative overview of H1 and H2 deal value and deal volume across a five-year period
• In-depth analysis of hostile takeovers, mandatory offers and competing bids in H1 2019
• Summary of deal volume and aggregate deal value across industry sectors
• Focus on emerging trends in public to private transactions
• Update on UK and foreign bidder activity
• Overview of recent and upcoming legal and regulatory developments, including proposals by the Competition and Markets Authority for a mandatory merger control filing regime and the coming into effect of the Prospectus Regulation (and related changes to the FCA Handbook and Financial Services and Markets Act 2000).

Click here to download the report

Key findings of our research include:

• Public M&A deal volume hit a five-year high in H1 2019, (33 firm offers) compared with 22 firm offers in H1 2018 and 20 firm offers in H2 2018
• Aggregate deal value was £26.4bn, representing an increase on H2 2018 (£19.5bn), but a substantial decrease on H1 2018 (£102.6bn)
• Of the 33 firm offers announced in H1 2019, seven (21%) had a deal value of £1bn or more compared with eleven (50%) such offers in H1 2018 and six (30%) in H2 2018
• Schemes of arrangement remain the most popular choice of structure, accounting for 76% of all firm offers announced in H1 2019
• Cash is king - 76% of all firm offers were cash offers and 82% included a cash element
• Over half of H1 activity concentrated in four industry sectors - Media & Telecommunications (18%), Computing & IT (15%), Professional Services (12%) and Travel, Hospitality, Leisure & Tourism (12%)
• Increase in hostile offers in H1 2019, which saw four hostile offers from the outset, in comparison to one in H1 2018 and two in H2 2018
• Private equity buyers were involved in 39% of firm offers announced during H1, including four transactions with an offer price over £1bn. Aggregate deal value of P2P transactions was £15.6bn, significantly higher than in H1 2018 (£4.3bn) and H2 2018 (£5.7bn)

This report features market insight from expert practitioners, including Simon Wood and Giles Distin, Addleshaw Goddard, Simon Allport, Bird & Bird, Alison Smith, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Selina Sagayam, Gibson Dunn, Rob Hutchings and Adam Cain, Pinsent Masons, Gillian Fairfield, Slaughter and May and Patrick Sarch, Tom Matthews and Dominic Ross, White & Case.