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Expanding on a busy start to 2024, David Brangam, Head of Corporate and M&A at Simmons in Dublin noted that “Given the wider backdrop of a challenging M&A market, we are delighted to have seen a strong start to 2024 with a really nice spread of deals across our core sectors, particularly TMT and healthcare & life sciences. Many of these deals encapsulate our unique offering which combines real sectoral expertise and geographic coverage to successfully deliver internationally-driven deals in regulated spaces”.
The first half of 2024 saw Simmons advise on a variety of notable deals including Infranity’s investment into Vantage’s EMEA data centre platform, Euronext-listed Ipsos on its acquisitions of Jarmany and Datasmoothie, NASDAQ-listed Flex’s acquisition of FreeFlow and Appotex’s acquisition of Searchlight Pharma.
Micheál Mulvey, Corporate partner remarked that “Whilst deal flow remains strong, transactions are becoming more elongated due to enhanced diligence, increasing anti-trust and FDI hurdles and the pace of debt financing. We expect continued positive momentum in the second half of the year with increased activity from US strategic buyers, PE and corporate venturing clients”.
Artificial intelligence has been a key driver for a number of the deals which Simmons advised on recently and, commenting on this wider trend, Christine Quigley, Managing Associate explained that “We are seeing a large number of deals where our clients are seeking acquisitions which deliver new or enhanced AI capabilities and technical talent onto their existing platforms, particularly in the cybersecurity, data analytics and medical devices spaces. Moreover, as a Firm, we are now using generative AI to facilitate M&A deal processes to achieve efficiencies for our clients”.
Looking ahead to the rest of the year, David Brangam continued; “The trend line is positive thanks to underlying confidence in dealmakers’ appetites, large amounts of capital ready to be deployed, the valuation gap narrowing considerably and the macro climate now being more facilitative to the types of leveraged deal that will really move the dial in terms of M&A activity”.
