People
Nick Wood
Partner & Managing Director, Head of Corporate Finance Advisory | Industrial M&A lead
London
By contrast with the second quarter of 2020, which saw deal activity in the global industrial sector at record lows as it felt the most significant impact of COVID-19, Q2 2021 has brought optimism for a return to pre-crisis activity.
As this quarter’s AlixPartners Industrials Quarterly M&A review reveals, there was a wealth of deal activity across the sector, exhibiting an encouraging prolonged return to pre-COVID levels.
This is exemplified by a 286% increase in deal value and a 46% increase in deal volume compared to Q2 2020. Despite a marginal decrease in valuation multiples with an average of 9.3x, down 6% on Q1 2021, multiples still remain higher than pre-COVID levels.
While uncertainty remains and supply chain challenges look set to increase in H2, the momentum in industrial M&A is significant and all indicators would point to a stellar year of deal activity.
In addition to downloading this quarter’s full report, you can also watch my interview with Abhishek Jain, M&A Director at Schneider Electric. With 13 deals completed by his company since March 2020 and transaction values well in excess of €4.5bn, Abhishek shares some fascinating perspectives on recent market activity, and reflects on the challenges and opportunities that the pandemic has presented to dealmakers.
Additional authors: Dario Duse, Michael Wabnitz, Florian Stellner, Theunis Maritz, Utsav Patel and Daniel Brace.