Record year for Grant Thornton Northern deals team
Grant Thornton's Northern Corporate Finance team has achieved a record year. The team advised on deals worth over £620 million in 2024, as the UK mergers and acquisitions market finally saw a return to health.
Commenting on 2024, Grant Thornton Partner Peter Terry said, "As reflected in many of our deals, demand from private equity (PE) and acquisitive corporates for high quality businesses in the SaaS, healthcare, FM (facilities management), energy transition and business services sectors remained robust during the year. Confidence increased as political uncertainty eased, particularly post-Budget, and inflation and interest rates began to soften.”
The changes across the UK have been keenly felt in the North. According to Terry, the region's business base is “broad and diverse with many leading universities, a skilled talent pool, and long-established industries,” helping it to prove resilient over the decades. But looking ahead now, Grant Thornton is confident in the region and in the firm’s ability to “transact complex buy side and sell side transactions, supporting PE firms as well as ambitious mid-market firms to achieve their strategic goals.”
Among the stand-out deals of 2024 were global heating, cooling and ventilation group Daikin's acquisition of Robert Heath Heating, the sale of Blackpool-based aggregates and earthworks hauler Fox Brothers to Stellex Capital (a complex deal that saw Fox Bros simultaneously acquiring a quarry operator), the sale of Next Energy to Certas Energy and two high profile strategic transactions with listed client, Renew Holdings.
This helped Grant Thornton UK's Northern Corporate Finance team to complete a record year advising on deals worth more than £620 million in 2024. It is led by Terry, and fellow partners Matt Bryden-Smith and Jim Whittaker.
According to them, the great results are not only a reflection of the changes the UK has enjoyed in 2024, but also a testament to the firm's combined regional and sector-led approach, with a significant investment in its people. A number of new hires have joined during 2024 including life science sector specialist Abi Godfrey, who was previously with Deloitte.
Looking forward to 2025, Whittaker added, "The outlook is more positive than it was this time 12 months ago, and we are seeing opportunities across a broadening range of sectors including those you would expect such as health-tech and software, but there are also businesses in certain niche consumer-facing sectors, such as travel seeing renewed interest.”
