The UK is great at exporting companies with real potential
Patrick Sarch, partner and head of UK Public M&A at global law firm White & Case LLP, said: “The UK is great at exporting companies with real potential. International bidders continue to be drawn to the UK market and its world-class businesses, which have deep management talent and technological expertise, are global with geographically diversified revenues, and are undervalued relatively, but have great scope to scale up in private hands.
“International buyers see the value which general UK market investors seem not to. In particular, the industrials and financial services sectors have been the most active recently, accounting for six of the seven firm offers announced in March and April 2026. Both financial and strategic bidders have been active and, in a shift from last year, when nearly all bidders were UK or North American, 50% of bids in March and April 2026 were made by mainland European bidders.
“Even though many companies are disappointed with their ongoing trading values, FOMO is a strong driver of deals. Publicly and privately, we continue to see strong competition for prime assets, with multiple bidders looking at the same targets, often for long periods. We therefore anticipate deal values increasing further, driven by transformational strategic M&A, bigger public-to-private transactions (including consortium and club deals), and increased activity in the defence and industrials sectors.”