Introduction
In the 13th edition of our report, we bring you the key deal highlights and M&A trends across UK/Europe in the past 12 months which have shaped the financial services landscape. Focusing on the following verticals:
Key highlights include:
- Banks: Big Bank Bearhug Bonanza.
- Fintech: Fragility of private and public capital fundraising markets drives consolidation activity.
- Asset/Wealth Management: M&A landscape remains consistently hot—private equity drives mergers-of-equals and turbocharges trade consolidation in the last 12 months.
- Payments: While Global Payments' US$24.25 billion acquisition of Worldpay from FIS and FIS's US$13.5 billion response acquisition of Global Payments' issuer solutions have dominated headlines, the sheer volume of deals in the payments space speaks for itself.
- Financial Market Infrastructure: Mega private equity buy-outs shape Europe's FMI landscape—KKR seeks to emulate Blackstone's Refinitiv success through acquisition of OSTTRA.
- Brokers/Corporate Finance: It's all about the people—M&A activity centres around acquiring sector expertise, client relationships and local market knowledge.
- Consumer Finance: Is anyone talking about anything other than Klarna's long-awaited US equity debut?
- Specialty Finance/Marketplace Lending: Complexity of deal-making has materially increased in the last 12 months. Debt, in the form of warehouses, revolvers and notes, often plays a pivotal role even in "vanilla" deals.
UK & European financial services M&A trends
Fragility of private and public capital fundraising markets drives consolidation activity
Asset / Wealth Management
M&A landscape remains consistently hot—private equity drives mergers-of-equals and turbocharges trade consolidation in the last 12 months.
Payments
While Global Payments' US$24.25 billion acquisition of Worldpay from FIS and FIS's US$13.5 billion response acquisition of Global Payments' issuer solutions have dominated headlines, the sheer volume of deals in the payments space speaks for itself.
Financial Market Infrastructure
Mega private equity buy-outs shape Europe's FMI landscape—KKR seeks to emulate Blackstone's Refinitiv success through acquisition of OSTTRA.
Brokers / Corporate Finance
It's all about the people—M&A activity centres around acquiring sector expertise, client relationships and local market knowledge.
Consumer Finance
Is anyone talking about anything other than Klarna's long-awaited US equity debut?
Specialty Finance / Marketplace Lending
Complexity of deal-making has materially increased in the last 12 months. Debt, in the form of warehouses, revolvers and notes, often plays a pivotal role even in "vanilla" deals.
