Our M&A lawyers are among the most experienced and effective in the world. We represent many of the world's largest publicly traded and privately held companies, as well as leading private equity firms on their most important mergers, acquisitions and takeover transactions.
Matthew Hearn, David Holdsworth, Nicole Kar and Dan Schuster-Woldan Featured in Lexis+ UK M&A Trends Report
January 28, 2025
Paul, Weiss partners Matthew Hearn, David Holdsworth, Nicole Kar and Dan Schuster-Woldan were featured as expert commentators in the Lexis+ UK M&A Trends Report, a comprehensive analysis of public M&A activity and legal/regulatory developments in the UK in 2024. The report reviewed 121 transactions totaling £54.9 billion.
European Public M&A Head Dan Schuster-Woldan outlines overall expectations for activity in the UK public M&A market, following the return of bigger ticket UK public M&A in 2024, noting increased activity may be supported by strategic bidders who find it important to “undertake larger ticket transformational M&A in order to unlock value,” financial sponsors’ significant available private capital and certainty in interest rates and inflation levels. “Interest in UK public targets remains high and overall we expect the market to be very busy,” Dan says.
Noting the “wide geographic mix” of bidders in the UK public market in 2024, corporate partner Matthew Hearn says he expects interest by U.S. bidders in the UK market to continue this year. “We expect U.S. bidders to continue to find UK public targets attractive as a result of generally favorable exchange rates (should they continue) and the continued perception of many UK public companies having comparatively low valuations,” Matthew says.
On the private equity side, corporate partner David Holdsworth discusses expectations for public-to-private (P2P) transactions and the general market, amid a decreased volume of such transactions and higher aggregate and individual deal values for take-private transactions last year. Looking ahead, he says, “interest from financial sponsors in pursuing P2P transactions and general market confidence remains high. We expect this will continue, along with a general expected M&A upcycle in 2025, and key drivers of activity in the UK public market for financial sponsors will remain the need to deploy a significant amount of excess capital and a continued improvement in financing conditions,” David says.
Looking at potential impacts of UK and EU competition authorities on dealmaking trends, global Antitrust Co-Chair Nicole Kar discusses whether there will be increasing clearance of deals with behavioral remedies by the UK’s CMA (Competition and Markets Authority). She notes that the CMA’s unprecedented approval of the Vodafone/Hutchison deal has encouraged dealmakers, though EU officials have not embraced the investment commitments approach – “creating the potential for divergence in analysis and remedies in cross-border M&A that parties should be alert to,” Nicole notes.
» read the report (subscription required)