Corporate Finance

2024: Spring update

 

Welcome to the FRP Corporate Finance Spring update. You’ll discover more about our latest activity including the most recent deals, news and sector insights. Dan Salt provides an overview of the current M&A landscape including current market conditions, resilience amongst UK businesses, sector trends and diversity in deal structures; and Tom Cox shares his thoughts on the latest trends and sentiment in the debt funding market.

The Q1 2024 M&A Review from Experian has recently been released and places FRP 13th in the UK financial adviser league tables. Regionally we were 7th in the South-East, 6th in the East of England, and 5th in the South-West.

Our award success has continued this quarter with Corporate Finance Adviser wins for Darren Miller at the Business Magazine Solent Deal Awards, and Adrian Alexander at the Insider South-East Dealmakers awards. In addition FRP Corporate Finance advised on the Sale of CLC Group to H.I.G. Capital, which won ‘Large deal of the year’ at both award ceremonies.

We recently announced fifteen promotions across the business to further strengthen our corporate finance teams across the country. In London, Joel Coulson and Ed Shurville-Darlington have been promoted to corporate finance director while Umito Choji has been promoted to director within the debt advisory team.

In May we attended the AICA Global Meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, joined by 40 delegates from across our international network. The two-day conference focused on cross border M&A and member collaboration and culminated with Simon Davies, being named 'most valuable player of 2023', due to his cross-border collaboration on deals. 

 

M&A update

Dan Salt reviews the latest developments in the M&A market

M&A activity in 2023 was characterised by uncertainty, with both deal volumes and values subdued due to the influence of inflation, high interest rates and low consumer confidence. The large-cap market bore the brunt of these conditions, with the lower mid-market proving its resilience – yet all businesses will have recognised their impact at some point.

For these reasons, management teams will be all the more grateful that 2024 has so far delivered a long-awaited period of stability, consistency and predictability despite some economic pressures remaining.

Operating conditions are generally improving, with falling inflation enabling business owners to forecast more effectively and plan for the year ahead. There are also growing expectations of at least two further cuts to the base rate, which would ease constraints and boost business confidence further.

Of course, there is no doubt that the macroeconomic picture remains challenging – yet UK businesses are continuing to show tremendous amounts of resilience. Indeed, UK PLC and large corporates appear to be reaping the benefits of creating resilience and protecting balance sheet strength during the downturn rather than higher-risk strategies to yield growth, and this approach is now feeding into the mid-market in terms of renewed interest in M&A activity.

Dan Salt, Partner - Corporate Finance

Debt Market update

Tom Cox reviews the current state of the UK debt market

Supported by more positive sentiment at the start of the year, conditions in the UK’s debt market are looking up, but rate pressure remains.

Despite more optimism than 12 months ago, the general consensus that interest rates will stay higher for longer, to stave off the risk of a secondary bounce in inflation, will likely see some of the debt service pressures that have marked recent months persist a while longer.

Here, we take a wide look at the state of the UK debt market landscape, and what could lie ahead.

 

Tom Cox, Partner - Debt Advisory

 

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