2019 will count around 100 M&A deals while NPL transactions will further decrease

The 2019 M&A market will count around 100 deals, keeping a similar trend with the 2008-2018 period, according to Deloitte Romania Financial Advisory estimations. Also, the average transactions value for 2019 is estimated by Deloitte Romania between 40 and 50 million euros, slightly above the 40 million euros average in the past decade. 

“Despite the harsh fiscal context at the beginning of 2019, we do not anticipate major consequences on the M&A market in the first half of the year, but rather towards year-end, when the window of opportunity may close, depending on the macroeconomic context. We expect the most dynamic sectors of the M&A market in 2019 to be technology, retail, healthcare, consumer goods and real estate,” said Ioana Filipescu, Corporate Finance Partner, Deloitte Romania.

The 2018 Romanian M&A market, estimated by Deloitte Romania between 3.8 and 4.3 billion euros, including deals with undisclosed value, was less transparent than in the previous years, with a significant decrease in the number of deals with disclosed values. Considering the disclosed values, the market continued to be dominated in 2018 by strategic investors, which were involved in 56% of the transactions, while the private equity funds were at 39% of the disclosed volume.

As far as the 2016-2018 M&A deals with disclosed values are concerned, Romanian companies’ total value has been assessed at an average of 8.5 x EBITDA, slightly above those in the CEE area, of 7.8 x EBITDA, according to a Deloitte Romania analysis based on Mergermarket data.