When taking a look back at 2024, a mixed picture emerges for merger and acquisition activity (M&A). While the year saw some notable transactions as we begin 2025, the turbulent global investment environment will undoubtedly have an impact on the volume and pattern of M&A activity.
Last year, the global M&A market saw a cautious stance among dealmakers owing to geopolitical tensions and economic uncertainties, says Andrew McIntyre, partner and head of corporate/M&A at William Fry. “These factors prolonged deal timelines and impacted valuations for high quality targets, yet, overall, M&A activity was resilient, with global trends showing stability despite various challenges.” Falling inflation and interest rates in many markets boosted optimism, he adds.
“Despite initial optimism, global M&A was slow to gain momentum in early 2024 due to headwinds such as inflation, interest rate uncertainty and market volatility,” says David O’Kelly, head of M&A with KPMG in Ireland. “However, activity gained pace through the year, supported by easing inflation and improved financing conditions. AI, healthcare, and energy transition all drove deal activity during the year.”
Buyer interest in strategic acquisitions remained strong throughout 2024, driven by ample capital availability and a renewed emphasis on growth through M&A, O’Kelly says. “This momentum is expected to carry into 2025, with strategic buyers increasingly focused on acquisitions that provide transformative capabilities, enabling them to innovate, diversify and maintain a competitive edge.”
Ireland’s M&A market mirrored global trends throughout 2024, showing “resilience and robustness”, McIntyre says. “Most Irish M&A activity continued to take place in the mid-market, similar to previous years, but there was a notable increase in high-value transactions.”
Philip Lee’s head of M&A and corporate transactions Eoghan Doyle agrees. “Building on the back of some recent record years in Ireland, M&A activity once again was strong in 2024,” he says. While at the beginning of 2024 there was an initial decline in the volume of deals compared to the record-breaking activity that was recorded in Q4 2023, activity managed to bounce back to gather momentum in the second quarter. There were 351 deals involving an Irish business in the first half of 2024, a total only marginally down on the 358 transactions announced during the first half of 2023. And, as the year moved on, deal volumes increased by 11 per cent, whereas global M&A deal volumes increased around 9 per cent, when compared to Q3 2023.
This growth outpaced the global M&A recovery, reinforcing Ireland’s status as an attractive destination for investment, O’Kelly says. “Notably, the volume of deals exceeding €100 million increased by 25 per cent in Q3 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, reflecting strong investor confidence.”
The Irish market has seen a significant increase in private equity activity over the last number of years and all signs are that this trend will continue, O’Kelly adds. “Private equity firms continue to deploy their record levels of dry powder,” he says. “2024 witnessed a series of successful exits from Irish-based private equity funds, including Erisbeg’s sale of Medray, MML Growth Capital’s divestment of Kyte, and Renatus’s exit from AQF Medical. These high-profile transactions illustrate the success of the private equity sector in Ireland.”
“Deal values for Irish transactions fell in Q3 2024 compared to the same period in 2023 but that is largely down to one mega value transaction, the Smurfit WestRock €19 billion merger in 2023,” Doyle notes. “Taking that transaction out of the equation, this would leave deal values up around 100 per cent on Q3 2023.”
There were a number of noteworthy deals in 2024. These include Apollo Global Management who acquired a 49 per cent stake in Intel’s semiconductor firm, Fab 34, for €10.1 billion, while Avolon Holdings acquired Castlelake Aviation for €4.1 billion. In the gaming sector, Flutter Entertainment acquired the Italian operator Snaitech for €2.3 billion; while EQT completed the €2 billion acquisition of AMCS, a leading waste management software provider.
“Transactions targeting companies operating in the ICT sector remain the most active sector for deal activity,” Doyle says. “To give an indication, in the first half of 2024, deals in the ICT sector made up around 30 per cent of all Irish deal volume.” Next in line in terms of deal activity were business services, professional and technical and financial services.
The technology sector continues to be the leading sector for deal flow in Ireland, Doyle notes. “Last year we worked on a number of deals in the data centre space as well as private equity and M&A transactions in cybersecurity and payments,” he says. “We advised Irish-based ventilation specialist firm in the data centre space, Q-Nis, on a strategic deal with Kingspan Data Solutions, a division of Kingspan, and have been working closely with Irish headquartered payments company, NomuPay and leading pan-European investor, Finch Capital, on M&A and private equity funding transactions over the past year.”
The trends in technology, media and telecoms industry are expected to continue, with ongoing interest in areas like artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, McIntyre adds.
The climate imperative has also seen a jump in activity in this space. “The energy sector, particularly renewables, is poised for significant activity, with several multimillion-euro transactions anticipated,” McIntyre says. Doyle agrees: earlier this year, Philip Lee advised Irish-based energy consultancy specialist firm, CapSpire, on a private equity transaction with US based Falfurrias Growth Partners.
The expectation is that deal activity in 2025 will remain strong. “We can already see a pipeline of deals for the new year across a range of sectors in technology and telecoms, energy and climate, and private equity,” Doyle says. “There is a wall of capital looking to deploy in Ireland and a raft of strong performing companies in sectors that will be targeted for private equity investment and M&A opportunities.”
This is despite widespread global uncertainty as the new US administration makes its mark. “The obvious challenge for Ireland and globally will of course be the Trump effect,” Doyle admits. “Nobody knows for sure how this will work out and there are mixed views in the market as to speed and real impact in the short to medium term that any moves by the Trump administration might have, specifically on the Irish economy.”
“The Trump administration is expected to reset US relations globally, with potential impacts on global trade,” McIntyre agrees. The conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East are also concerning and will potentially affect global M&A activity, he says. “Despite this, the stable political environment in Ireland, coupled with robust sectoral performance and a build-up of demand for mergers and acquisitions, suggests a cautiously optimistic forecast for M&A activity in 2025.”
O’Kelly remains positive. While a changing global environment can have an impact on businesses that have inflexible supply chains or are exposed to impacted areas, he notes that during the pandemic, deal activity was maintained once sellers were able to satisfy questions about the impact on their business. “We would expect high quality businesses that are not directly impacted to remain attractive to buyers. Demand for high-quality businesses remains strong, contributing to premium valuations. Looking ahead to 2025, competition for top-tier targets is expected to intensify, creating a competitive bidding environment.”
Doyle, however, points out that a “significant and new challenge” to M&A activity in Ireland in 2025 will be the launch of the Screening of Third Country Transactions Act 2023, that was transposed into law in January 2025. “This will implement for the first time in Ireland a mandatory notification requirement for certain investments into Irish businesses – and Irish subsidiaries of an international company, and/or Irish-held assets – by undertakings from non-EU/EEA third countries such as the UK and US in certain specific sectors,” he explains. “Failure to notify will bring the risk of criminal liability, and the regime itself will inevitably bring delays to closing timelines for affected deals.”
