2008: What goes up must come down

The Southern European market has proven resilient, in particular Italy. The year ends on a high note for Italy after Investcorp and Barclays Private Equity closed the EUR800m+ acquisition of N&W Global Vending, managing to secure a staggering EUR600m in debt from a syndicate of eight banks, namely Barclays, Bank of Ireland, BNP Paribas, Calyon, ING Group, Intesa, Natixis and Societe Generale; making this the largest European leveraged transaction of the fourth quarter.

According to the data collected by unquote" proprietary database Private Equity Insight, in absolute terms deal activity between H1 and H2 remained almost the same in Southern Europe, although there was a considerable difference between Q3 and Q4, with a more pronounced difference in the case of the overall deal value recorded.

Certainly, the deal value and volume in Southern Europe has come to represent around 16% and 17% of the European totals respectively; a very respectable share. However, although Southern Europe still offers plenty of opportunities at the mid-market level, the difficulties in securing finance have slowly begun to be felt.

Indeed, when placed side by side the European deal flow and the Southern European deal flow paint a similar picture. unquote's data shows that in Europe as a whole the second half of the year saw a 33% drop in activity accompanied by a 53% drop in deal value.

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• Southern Europe