PwC’s Transactions and Lead Advisory team delivers strong performance in FY22/23

PwC’s Transactions and Lead Advisory team in the North & Midlands has completed market leading transformational deals both across the region and globally with a value in excess of £10bn in FY22/23.

Dan Gallagher, Partner and N&M Deals leader said:

“The North and Midlands Transactions and Lead Advisory team has delivered a strong performance this year against a backdrop of economic and geopolitical challenges. Following the record level of deals in 2021, we entered 2022 with a strong pipeline of activity which continued throughout the first half and then began to temper at the end of the year.

"Demand for our expertise remains strong, particularly in areas such as technology, transformation and ESG across a variety of sectors including Technology, Healthcare, Industrial Products, Business Services and Energy & Infrastructure. Despite the challenges, there continues to be positive market sentiment and ongoing appetite to acquire good quality businesses. In our latest CEO Survey, 63% of UK company leaders said they do not plan on delaying deals in the coming year and we are seeing companies are still very much on the lookout for opportunities to transact to transform their business. Corporate appetite to accelerate growth and change combined with private equity’s continued deployment of capital continue to support the deals market. We remain cautiously optimistic that 2023-24 will be an active M&A market.”

The TMT sector in particular continued to see high activity levels across both corporate and private equity transactions, some of the key Deals included Volpi Capital’s acquisition of Xalient Holdings, LDC investing in AI Recruitment Technologies and Bowmark Capital investing in Littlefish.

Deals in the Industrials and Business Services sector also remained strong particularly in the infrastructure services sector where we saw a cluster of transactions including Triton Partners acquisition of O’Connor Utilities, OMERS acquisition of Network Plus and Arcus Infrastructure Partners acquisition of Workdry International Group Limited. More recently PwC Lead Advisory and Transactions combined to advise Augean on its acquisition of Future Industrial Services from NorthEdge Capital and advised on another three deals in the waste and circular economy segment.

To support the pipeline of activity, PwC has recently announced further investment into the team in the North and Midlands, with over 100 promotions taking place in July, including ten directors and four new Partner admissions - Rebecca Elnaugh, Sally Graham, Georgie Bryce and Zeynep Turunc.

Rebecca Elnaugh, joined PwC in 2021 and has specialised in valuations for 15 years. Rebecca focuses on mid-market private equity clients working with them to enhance value through the design, implementation and valuation of management incentive plans.

Sally Graham, joined PwC in 2006 from university and is a specialist in PwC’s Sale and Purchase Agreement (SPA) team. Sally focuses on helping private equity and corporate clients across a range of sectors and deal sizes to maximise and protect value through their M&A transaction pricing mechanisms.

Georgie Bryce, will lead PwC's Deals Insights & Analytics team in the North West with a focus on deploying advanced analytics to drive value across the deal lifecycle. She joined the firm in 2011.

Zeynep Turunc, has lived in Manchester for over 20 years and is responsible for the growth of PwC's Financial Crime practice in Manchester and Scotland. She joined the firm in 2018.