Dialling in the deal – the inside track on the Vodafone/Three merger

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Dialling in the deal – the inside track on the Vodafone/Three merger

Whatever metric you track, 2023 was a poor year for M&A. One bright spark amid the gloom was the proposed £15bn merger between Vodafone UK and Three UK, which was announced in summer 2023. If cleared by competition authorities, the deal will create the UK’s biggest mobile phone operator.

The transaction was one of the five largest announced UK M&A deals by value last year according to Dealogic data, seeing Vodafone and CK Hutchison – the Hong-Kong based owner of Three – announce their intention to combine both UK mobile arms.

Continue reading “Dialling in the deal – the inside track on the Vodafone/Three merger”

Dealwatch: US firms lead on household names The Body Shop and Yodel as restructuring returns

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Dealwatch: US firms lead on household names The Body Shop and Yodel as restructuring returns

The long-dormant restructuring market has had a shot in the arm recently, with the City teams of US stalwarts winning lead mandates on the administration of The Body Shop and a rescue deal of Yodel.

Jones Day and White & Case are handling the administration of cosmetic group The Body Shop, while Dechert and Weil advised parcel delivery business Yodel to secure a rescue deal backed by one of its rivals. Continue reading “Dealwatch: US firms lead on household names The Body Shop and Yodel as restructuring returns”

Dealwatch: Big-ticket life sciences activity picks up again as overseas investors buy into the UK

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Dealwatch: Big-ticket life sciences activity picks up again as overseas investors buy into the UK

The broader life sciences sector saw a spate of deal activity in recent weeks, with two acquisitions over the billion-dollar mark and several more in the hundreds of millions.

The highest-value transaction came on 28 August, when US-based life sciences company Danaher announced its agreement to purchase Cambridge-based protein research tools supplier Abcam in a deal valued at $5.7bn. Continue reading “Dealwatch: Big-ticket life sciences activity picks up again as overseas investors buy into the UK”

The Last Word: Gender agenda

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The Last Word: Gender agenda

‘Firms have to be flexible and acknowledge they may have fantastic senior associates who want to put their partnership ambitions on hold for a few years while they have a family.’ Isabella Roberts, Simmons & Simmons

Following on from our Alphas 2.0 feature, we ask female deal stars to talk about the challenges they have faced and still plague the industry today

Continue reading “The Last Word: Gender agenda”

Sponsored briefing: Reviewing the M&A landscape

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Sponsored briefing: Reviewing the M&A landscape

Milbank’s Lisa O’Neill, Andrea Hamilton and Lara Watt on developments in the M&A market as well as the strength of their team

Reflecting on the M&A landscape over the last few years, Lisa O’Neill, partner and co-head of the corporate group in Milbank’s London office, was struck by the scale of change driven by global events. ‘The Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the inflationary environment and impact on lending, the proliferation of foreign investment controls and foreign subsidies regulations, an increasing focus on ESG – the list goes on. These macro-economic and policy developments have affected the market significantly and driven increasing client need for top-tier advice within the more complex landscape,’ she explains. ‘In addition, within the legal sector there are increased demands for broader inclusion among practitioners and greater DEI efforts overall; this change is also being reflected in the M&A community.’ Continue reading “Sponsored briefing: Reviewing the M&A landscape”

‘The wind was taken out of everyone’s sails’ – the M&A report 2023

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‘The wind was taken out of everyone’s sails’ – the M&A report 2023

2021 was always going to be a tough year to follow. Quite how tough, few could have foreseen at the start of 2022.

With global annual deal values totalling almost $6trn – a jump of more than 60% on 2020 – 2021 was roundly described in breathless superlatives. Following a year of pent-up demand during the pandemic, soaring levels of M&A activity were fuelled by the vaulting ambition of private equity (PE) houses, a surge in tech and pharmaceutical sector deals, and a boom in activity from special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). Continue reading “‘The wind was taken out of everyone’s sails’ – the M&A report 2023”

M&A veterans: Got the T-shirt – M&A Hall of Famers on closing deals in a crisis

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M&A veterans: Got the T-shirt – M&A Hall of Famers on closing deals in a crisis

A global pandemic, the war in Ukraine, soaring energy prices and inflation, as well as interest rate hikes significantly pushing up the cost of debt – it is no wonder M&A markets are struggling right now. Against this backdrop of instability, arguably the bigger questions are how activity levels managed to hold up for as long as they have, and how they have not crashed further.

But, while City M&A partners are keen to stress that things could be far worse, and point to pipelines of deals in place for when markets pick up (see feature), the differences between now and this time last year are stark. Continue reading “M&A veterans: Got the T-shirt – M&A Hall of Famers on closing deals in a crisis”