Region Sees Big Rise In Private Equity Backed Manufacturing Deals

Deal activity involving West Midlands-based manufacturers during the previous three months remained at the same level as the first quarter of 2014, but the influence of private equity grew significantly – says a new report.
 
According to the latest data from Experian and analysis from law firm, Irwin Mitchell, manufacturers in the West Midlands were the target of 17 deals during 2014 Q2. This takes the total number of deals completed so far this year to 34 – 6% more than the same time in 2013.
 
The West Midlands region’s share of manufacturing M&A activity across England increased slightly from 9.2% in Q1 to 9.7% in Q2 – but this was still down from the percentage for the whole of 2013 (10.4%). It was however greater than the figure recorded in the East Midlands, South West and North East.
 
Although deal volumes remained relatively flat in the West Midlands, the region saw a high proportion of deals involving private equity as the source of the funding.
 
Almost a third (29.4%) of manufacturing deals in the West Midlands were backed by private equity – significantly higher than the national figure of 16%.
 
Nick Dawson, Corporate Partner at Irwin Mitchell’s Birmingham office, said:

Expert Opinion

Although deal volumes have been flat, there are plenty of encouraging signs. The number of deals nationally was at its highest level for six years and in the West Midlands we are ahead of where we were this time last year. The fact that the region has bucked the trend in terms of private equity is also significant and a clear sign of growing optimism. This latest report points to a positive picture for the region and our deal pipeline certainly remains strong.” Nick Dawson - Partner

This research is based on data sourced from Experian Corpfin’s proprietary M&A deals database.