Yorkshire M&A market remains resilient, despite market volatility
Corporate financial advisory business, Clearwater International, says its Yorkshire team completed a quartet of deals valued at over £200m during October, despite a cooling UK transaction market.
Since its inception in 2020, the firm’s Leeds team has worked across over 40 deals, valued at over £3bn.
Transactions advised on last month included:
- Investment in Fruition IT by Erisbeg
- Sale of Forensic Testing Service to Forensic Access Group, backed by Limerston Capital
- Sale of iamproperty (backed by LDC) to Perwyn
- Sale of Derwentside Environmental Testing Services (DETS) and Latis Scientific for Suez to Normec, backed by Astorg
Clearwater noted all these deals involved firms within either the business services and/or technology sectors, where interest from PE investors remains high.
It adds that while volumes in Yorkshire have been lower so far during 2023, in common with the wider UK M&A market, there is still a well-established corporate finance community supporting a strong pipeline of deals.
Richard Goldsack, partner at Clearwater International, said: “Market volatility has certainly made the M&A market more challenging during 2023, so it is more crucial than ever for advisers to demonstrate expert deal craft when working with their clients.
“Our team has worked with some great businesses, in what is a challenging M&A market which shows that for quality businesses there is plenty of capital available.
“Our recent transactions show our ability to work with a wide range of clients, from advising entrepreneurial founders and PE backed businesses on the next step of their growth journey, to carve outs from large corporates.
“It has been great to work with four fantastic businesses and management teams in Yorkshire and the North East over the last couple of months.”
