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Mergers and acquisitions and opportunities

The path to thrive: M&A strategies for a brave new world

Globally, companies have responded and recovered from the pandemic conditions by launching significant metamorphoses, and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) played an instrumental role in this journey. In 2021, companies spent an unprecedented $5 trillion on M&A, the highest activity ever recorded. Such unprecedented peaks meant 2022 had a hard act to follow and, despite the challenging market conditions, closed with $3.3 trillion worth of deals, on par with the decade-long average.

How M&A can shake up and stabilize businesses

The past few years have demonstrated M&A strategies are firmly cemented as a fundamental part of the corporate arsenal, both in defense to preserve value and in offense to drive growth. The M&A markets are also highly resilient. Our analysis of the nearly 40 years of historical M&A data shows adverse market conditions are a short term drag, and M&A volumes tend to recover rapidly once the uncertainty subsides.

The past and the present

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) has been a powerful tool in business to expand capabilities and remain viable, which we discussed in our original report released at the onset of the pandemic. We believed that recovery would be asymmetrical and that sectors would have to reinvent themselves.

Back in 2008, the great financial crisis resulted in a sharp decline in M&A, and the markets did not recover until 2014. One of the main attributes of this market contagion was that it affected each sector fairly uniformly and therefore recovery cycles evolved over time, given the symmetrical nature of the underlying causality. However, this time around, the pandemic caused an asymmetrical market contagion as each industry and sector was affected differently. The result? Varying recovery velocities of leading and lagging, depending on the degree of impact and organizations’ corresponding abilities to do something about it.

As a result, markets came roaring back, and in 2021–22, more than $8 trillion worth of deals were announced, as companies took advantage of their strong cash reserves and favorable debt markets to make M&A central to business recovery. Based on our research from the original Charting new horizons report, we evolved our M&A framework based on defensive and offensive deal archetypes that could build resilient business models and accelerate transformation.

The path to thrive will be defined by two distinct capabilities: resilience, in which a company needs to secure its foundations, rapidly adapt, and emerge stronger; and transformative growth, in which it needs to reinvent the business to succeed in the new realities.

Defense and offense

Resilience isn’t about simply being able to weather changes. A different form of resilience may prioritize being agile and adaptable, which can be difficult to focus on when merely focusing on survival. A defensive M&A strategy can help to build this resilience in a few ways: delivering value, optimizing portfolios, and strengthening positioning.

For example, supply chain issues have been a recurring challenge over the past couple of years. To address that, a company could consider an acquisition of a supplier. This happened recently in response to the global semiconductor chip shortage crisis. A major chipmaker acquired a specialist chip contract manufacturer to boost production capacity and secure its customer base.

Companies could also seize on opportunities through co-investment and partnerships, including with private equity firms. This kind of collaboration can facilitate transformation by pooling resources and expertise, which in turn helps to build resilience.

Similarly, offensive strategies are also a way to capitalize on opportunities. However, an offensive strategy is grounded in gaining momentum rather than building resilience. Corporations could do that by transforming business models, collaborating to stay competitive, and capitalizing on cross-sector convergence. Many opportunities nowadays need to be considered through the lens of whether to build, buy, or collaborate to achieve a goal. These dynamics have pushed the expansion of the scope of traditional M&A strategies to include collaborative structures, partnerships, and other configurations.

For instance, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals often can’t be achieved unilaterally and demand collaboration; it can take multiple collaborators to make an impact. A useful example of this is the decarbonization of the aviation industry. To tackle this goal, an aircraft manufacturer, industrial gas supplier, and airport operator formed an alliance to promote the use of hydrogen infrastructure. Although this isn’t necessarily an example of a traditional merger or acquisition, it captures the positive potential of this broadened vision of M&A.

Disruption and you

The geopolitical tensions and economic challenges of the past few years will likely continue to affect how people do business. But change has always been a catalyst for opportunity, and M&A activities can facilitate transformative change. By building resilience and momentum, mergers and acquisitions can give businesses a chance to face the unknown with the tools to thrive.

Sector pathways

Check out M&A activity across sectors in 2022

Observations

  • After a record year in 2021, Energy, Resources & Industrials (ER&I) in 2022 stabilized with a 29% YoY decline in deal value to $816B and 11% YoY decline in volume to 12,547 transactions.
  • North America with $308B worth of deals was the most active region with respect to deal value, while Europe with 4,254 deals led in terms of deal volume in 2022.

Download the sector snapshot

Observations

  • After a record year in 2021, the Consumer sector saw YoY decline of 35% in M&A value to $614B in 2022.
  • In terms of M&A volume, Europe was the most active region with 5,724 deals, followed by Asia-Pacific (4,201 deals) and North America (3,697 deals). Europe was the most targeted region with $209B worth of deals in 2022.

Download the sector snapshot

Observations

  • After a high in 2021, Life Sciences & Health Care recorded a 44% YoY decline in deal value to $301B in 2022. The drop in value was primarily driven by the 51% YoY decline in the large deals segment (≥$1B to $10B) to a total $109B in 2022.
  • North America was the most active region, and deals worth $203B were announced in 2022. Europe came in a distant second with $47B worth of deals.

Download the sector snapshot

Observations

  • After the highs of 2021, the Financial Services sector registered a 43% YoY drop to $673B worth of deals in 2022, the lowest value seen in the past five years. Deal volumes also saw a YoY decline of 15% to 8,589 transactions in 2022.
  • Europe was the most active region in terms of deal volume with 2,973 transactions, followed by North America (2,579 deals) in 2022.

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Observations

  • Technology, Media & Telecom (TMT) was the most active sector with $877B worth of deals in 2022.
  • North America was the most active region with $558B worth of TMT deals in 2022. Europe was at a distant second with deals worth $146B.

Download the sector snapshot

The importance of M&A as an enabler of change has been demonstrated by the record-breaking activities during one of the most difficult times in business history. Looking ahead, we anticipate traditional M&A, as well as alternatives such as alliances and partnerships, to not only play a pivotal role but also evolve to meet new expectations and conditions. Successful companies will heed the lessons from the past while remaining resolutely focused on the horizon.

Download the full report

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