Introduction
This report looks at trends in 2023 in the main European corporate transactional markets and provides an outlook for 2024, analysing trends for Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), Private Equity (PE), Equity Capital Markets (ECM) and Venture Capital (VC).
As part of the analysis, we present the results of the survey of our corporate teams in those jurisdictions at the end of 2023 on:
- the M&A and PE markets in which they have been advising;
- the trends in the legal terms and processes in M&A and PE deals as at the end of Q4 2023; and
- what they foresee as likely to be the market outlook and trends in 2024 in their respective jurisdictions, noting that any predictions are speculative and markets and sectors in all surveyed jurisdictions remain uncertain and potentially volatile.
Market summary
Although 2023 was a challenging transactional market with deals taking longer to conclude and being much more susceptible to aborting than we have seen in previous years, the 2024 deal pipeline is improving as the macroeconomic environment across Europe starts to stabilise.
We expect to see an uptick in corporate deal processes being initiated and a release in pent-up demand – particularly in certain sectors, including artificial intelligence (AI), data and life sciences.
It is likely that the first half of 2024 will remain a buyer's and investor's market, but with a move towards more seller or founder / company-friendly terms as the year progresses.
European transactions in 2023 up 17% from 2022
Osborne Clarke 2024
cross-border transactions
transactions
3+ jurisdictions