Record year for Alantra’s professional services and consulting M&A team
With the boom of merger and acquisitions activity on a high, Alantra supported a record number of transactions in the professional services sphere last year.
Alantra is a global corporate finance advisory and investment banking firm with more than 550 professionals spread across Europe, the US, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia.
On the back of a bumper year for the M&A industry (deal value jumped to $5.3 trillion in 2021) the global professional services and consulting team of Alantra ended up completing its highest ever number of transactions, with 22 deals accounting for a combined £1.6 billion in deal value.
Richard Holden, Partner and UK head of Business Services at Alantra, commented, “2021 proved to be the most active year yet for Alantra’s professional services and consulting team. The range of deals underpins our strong record of advising business owners on the breadth of options available to them and delivering the right solution to achieve their goals.”
Among the deals Alantra assisted, Scottish accountancy and business services group AAB received backing from private equity firm August Equity. Meanwhile, Beech Tree Private Equity invested in pure-play Google Cloud expert Ancoris.
Throughout the year, the team completed high profile deals, advising a range of clients including entrepreneurs and management teams on mandates including sell-side, buy-side, debt advisory and equity capital markets lead advisory roles. Cross-border transactions accounted for half of the team’s transactions.
With the continued pandemic necessitating further shifts to remote working, demand for consultants who could support cloud or digital transformations remained high. This drew the attentions of investors, as reflected by the fact more than half of the deals the firm worked on involved some form of technology advisory.
Cloud consulting saw the largest amount of deal volume, followed by digital transformation. Data analytics and cyber consulting services were also among the proficiencies sought after by acquirers. Looking ahead, Holden expects this demand to continue through the following year.
He concluded, “The increasing implementation of tools such as intelligent automation, machine learning and artificial intelligence is supporting the growth potential of many tech-enabled mid-market platforms. Combined with attractive business models – strong repeat revenues from high growth and macro-resilient sectors, delivery of non-discretionary projects and trusted advice – we expect demand from financial investors and strategic acquirers for the best professional services and consultancies to remain high during 2022.”