Mid-market deals slump year on year
DEAL volumes and values in the North West slumped in the first half of this year as the continuing euro zone crisis hit business confidence.
Despite a number of private equity deals – with LDC particularly active in this region – there the value of transactions more than halved in the six months to the end of June, to £3.02bn from £6.8bn in the first half of 2011.
The number of deals fell too year-on-year, from 339 in 2011 to 288, data from business information provider Experian shows.
By number of deals the North West was second only to Greater London. but by value it was sixth overall with the Midlands (£11.3bn), South West (£52.6bn) and Scotland (£10.8bn) seeing large numbers of big-ticket deals.
Although there was generally fewer deals around the UK – the total value of mergers, acquisitions, flotations, rights issues and placements was up 29% at £141bn.
This was led primarily by an increase in transactions worth £1bn or more. During the first half of 2012, 24 large deals were announced worth £92.3bn in total. Of these 16 were proposed acquisitions of UK companies by overseas firms.
The UK mid-market (transactions worth between £10m and £100m) and small segments (transactions worth between £0.5m and £10m) saw declines in both volume and value in HY1 2012 compared to the same period in 2011.
The mid-market was down by around 20% in volume and value, with small deals down by just over 12% for both.
