After a booming activity in 2018, global m&a recorded a slight drop in 2019 with a volume of transactions equivalent to a total of over 3,740 billion dollars, down 2% from 3,863 billions in 2018, the year when a 14% jump was recorded, compared to the volume of deals in the previous year. The data, updated on Christmas Eve is by Dealogic in the real-time map published on the Wall Street Journal website, where you may also see that Europe is the tail light, with a 29% fall in activity versus 2018 at 755 billion dollars, while the Usa did well (+ 13% to around 1800 billion dollars) and especially Japan (+ 55% to over 135 billion). In Europe, however, Italy has made an important contribution to the statistics, if you think that among the top ten transactions by value announced during the year there are four where an Italian counterpart appears. Let’s talk about Peugeot-FCA, Essilor-Luxottica-Grandvision, Inwit- Vodafone Italy.
But apart from the big deals, in Italy there has been a fervent activity also on the front of small-medium sized m&a deals that involved private equity operators both in buying and in selling, BeBeez Private Data calculates (find out here how to subscribe for only 110 euros per month). The preliminary figure, updated on Christmas Eve, is 313 transactions officially announced or already concluded and compares with the 198 transactions that involved Italian companies in 2018. More specifically, 148 deal were direct investments by private equity funds in Italian companies compared to 91 deals of this type recorded in 2018. There were moreover 78 add-on investments, ie acquisitions of companies carried out through companies already in the portfolio of funds to build platforms in which to insert various SMEs that can thus grow together enjoying operational and financial synergies. The total figure then contains club deals investments, business combinations with SPACs, turnarounds, investments and divestments in renewable energy production plants and exits versus operators other than private equity funds.
As for private debt, SMEs in turn have worked a lot with many new bond issues, but in terms of value this has collapsed, because the big deals have been much less than in 2018. Still considering the preliminary data updated on Christmas Eve, BeBeez Private Data has counted 148 issues since the beginning of the year for a total value of approximately 4.9 billion euros. Of this total, 14 issues were over 100 millions, for a total of just under 4.2 billion euros, an important number, but much less than what was seen in 2018, when 17 issues had raised a total of 7.9 billion euros. Then, in 2018 there were three medium-sized issues between 50 and 100 millions for a total of 196 million euros, while in 2019 there were no medium-sized issues. As for issues from 50 millions downwards, the ones that can be called “real minibonds”, these were 134 in 2019, therefore far more than the 105 issues counted in 2018, which had led to SMEs over 645 million euros. In 2019 those 134 minibonds raised 727 million euros.
Subscribers to BeBeez News Premium will be able to download soon the Private Equity Report 2019 and the Private Debt Report 2019 with the updated data at the end of the year (find out how to subscribe for just 20 euros per month). The Venture Capital Report 2019, the Non Performing Exposures Report 2019 and, for the first time, also the Real Estate Report 2019 are also coming soon. All available in Italian and English.
