UK Watch: Large deals boom in 2012

However, smaller deals worth less than £150m have struggled in the later months of last year.

Q4 2012 saw eight buyouts in the UK worth £150m or more, with an aggregate value of £7.3bn. This saw the total value of large buyouts hit £15.5bn in the UK last year, the highest since the credit crisis hit in 2007.

But smaller deals have struggled to maintain the momentum of the top end of the market, with just 15 recorded in the final quarter of 2012, down from 18 in Q3. However, on an annual basis the figures were only slightly lower, with 107 sub-£150m deals last year compared to 118 in 2011.

Early-stage and expansion activity saw a more substantial fall, dropping from 224 deals in 2011 to just 195 in 2012. However, the overall value of these deals increased slightly to £1.61bn from £1.57bn.

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• Topics
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• Buyouts
• Early-stage
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• United Kingdom