Irish Mergers & Acquisitions Up, As With Deal Value

by ExitAdvisor · 14th January 2019

Irish M&A activity jumped to a 370% increase in 2018 over the previous year posting 163 transactions worth a total of €76 billion according to Mergermarket. 2017, by contrast, saw 151 deals valued at €16.2 billion.

Part of the large increase is thanks to a single €54 billion deal – Japan’s Takeda Pharmaceutical buyout of Shire. However, even excluding that whale, Ireland has still posted a healthy increase over the year.

Servier’s $2.4 billion acquisition of Shire’s oncology franchise was the second-largest deal locally last year, followed closely by Orix’s purchase of a stake in Avolon for $2.2 billion.

– The Irish Times

That’s despite Brexit uncertainty.

Average deal size didn’t do too badly either, standing at $384.8 million, the second highest on record (again, probably skewed badly by the Shire deal).

Separate figures from Pitchbook show that about 200 venture capital deals worth a combined €553 million were completed in the Republic last year. This marks a significant gain on the previous year, when the total of amount of capital invested was €100 million less. However, it was down from 2016’s peak of more than €632 million.