Business deal activity continues upward

MERGER and acquisition activity in the third quarter maintained its upward momentum but the value of completed deals fell by 82% year-on-year to €1.5bn, it emerged yesterday.

Ion Equity's quarterly M&A Tracker Survey shows the number of deals rose from 41 to 56.

Ion director Joe Devine said the decline in value terms could be attributed to the absence of any deals of the scale of those witnessed last summer when three transactions Green Property, Jefferson Smurfit and Allfirst all broke the €1bn barrier.

"There is actually a lot of activity in the Irish market, with year-on-year transaction volumes up by 40% for the second quarter running, but the deal sizes have tended to be low, the majority of the disclosed values being under €10m," he said.

Mr Devine said a recurring theme in the last two quarters had been a general resurgence in the number of IT and telecoms transactions involving Irish companies.

"There were a total of 13 deals in this sector during the quarter out of a total of 56. This is due to both consolidation opportunities and evidence of green shoots in certain IT sectors," he said.

He believes there is some optimism returning to markets and said this may prompt acquisitions by larger traditional businesses.

In the third quarter there were six management buyouts including those at NCB, Biotrin and DMC Medical.

Irish predators picked up 17 companies in trade sales in the quarter with National Linen's acquisition of the Connaught Court Group for 20.8m leading the way.

US companies spent €53.9m picking up Irish assets in the quarter, mostly in the IT sector.

Irish predators were busy in overseas markets with almost half the activity in the period in value terms €762.8m coming from foreign pickings by Irish companies.