Transactions: Featured Interviews 102 Sparkasse HagenHerdecke and Lüdenscheid’s Merger 106 Thélios’ Acquisition of Metallart 108 ALS Dental Acquires Precedental Ltd 109 Beretta Holding’s Acquisition of Ruag Ammotec 110 wefox’s $400 Million Series D Funding Round After a relatively weak summer, M&A returns with a surge of activity and rumblings of disturbances to come. Though last month’s M&A outlook showed global activity stymied by widespread inflation and the ongoing uncertainty created by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the North American market has since seen an eyecatching resurgence with $63 billion worth of transactions announced by 12 August – dwarfing the $52 billion recorded during the entirety of July.1 Buoying the total capital of this early wave of August deals were several super-large mergers, most prominently Visa Equity Partners’ proposed $7.8 billion purchase of software provider Avalara Inc. Further high-value deals continued to dominate the M&A scene in the latter half of the month. London-based data centre operator Global Switch selected a shortlist of firms2 to participate in the next round of bidding for a controlling stake, with participants including EQT Partners, Gaw Capital Partners, KKR, PAG and Stonefield Partners. Toy industry giant Hasbro also created a stir with news that it may be considering a sale or restructuring of its vast entertainment assets.3 Also of note this August were notes of uncertainty surrounding some of the largest acquisitions of the year to date. Frequent headlines4 were made of Elon Musk’s battle with Twitter over his attempt to withdraw a $44 billion bid for the social media platform, and of its attempts to halt the withdrawal. At the same time, emerged that the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has opened an investigation into Microsoft’s mammoth $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, citing unspecified ‘worries’ about the transaction. The CMA is set to announce its initial decision on 1 September, clearing the air regarding whether or not the largest tech deal in history will continue as planned. Finally, IPOs have continued to show mediocre returns overall, as it was reported that capital raised by listings on the London Stock Exchange during H1 of this year were down 95% in terms of capital raised5, though Barron’s reporter Luisa Beltran suggests there may be reason for optimism as larger IPOs arrive later in the year.6 Meanwhile, Porsche has confirmed7 that its planned stock market debut will be going ahead this year despite concerns that it will be impacted by the sudden departure of the company’s chief executive and his replacement by Oliver Blume, whose attentions may be split as head of both Porsche and Volkswagen. Mergers & Acquisitions 113 Fedrigoni’s Acquisition of UNIFOL 114 BMG Acquires The Telamo Label 115 Chiron Group’s Acquisition of HSTEC Funds & Investments 111 Credivalores-Crediservicios SA Obtains Financing of $100 Million 112 The Restructuring of the D’Andrea & D’Andrea Group 1https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-12/m-aunexpectedly-heats-up-as-august-sees-63-billion-in-deals 2https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/global-switchselects-shortlist-for-acquisition-bidders-report/ 3https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-08-21/ hasbro-considers-sale-or-restructuring-of-entertainment-assets 4https://seekingalpha.com/news/3876337-twitter-muskclash-in-hearing-over-data-requests-tied-to-acquisitiondeal?source=content_type%3Areact%7Cfirst_level_url%3Amarketnews%7Csection_asset%3Amain%7Csection%3Am-a 5https://london-post.co.uk/london-stock-exchange-ipos-down-95-interms-of-capital-raised/ 6https://www.barrons.com/articles/ipo-companiesstocks-51661121708 7https://www.cityam.com/porsche-ipo-on-track-as-volkswagenmaintains-year-outlook/
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