EY: The mergers and acquisitions market in Romania increased by 25% in the first half of this year, the value of transactions decreased

The market of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in Romania has registered 109 tradings in Q1 2022, up by 25% against the similar period of last year, shows an analysis made by EY, consultancy company.Despite the high volume of tradings, the estimated value of local activity for mergers and acquisitions was lower year in year out, at 2.5 billion dollars, against 4.2 billion dollars in Q1 2021, as a result of a drop of 51% of the value of the tradings, says EY.‘The acquisition of the auto producer Ford Romania by Ford Otosan the Netherlands for 785 million USD was the biggest trading in this period, followed by the acquisition of a portfolio of NPL in Romania by APS Holdings Corporation from Bank of Cyprus, for 158 million USD, the acquisition of the wind park Beta Wind by Energias of Portugal, through its subsidiary EDP Renovaveis, for 136 million USD and the acquisition of EXPO Business Park by S IMMO for 108 million USD’ the press release says.According to the consultants, the strategic investors continue to be the main actors of the markets for mergers and acquisitions in Romania, representing 89% of the tradings.Domestic tradings registered an advance of 45% in Q1 2022 against the same period of last year, with a total of 55 tradings, while the foreign players increased their activity with only 9% on the Romanian market (49 tradings) against the same period of the previous year. As regards the source, most active investors were from the US (five tradings), followed by the investors from the Netherlands, Poland, Belgium and the UK (each four tradings). The most active sectors depending on the volume of tradings drawn are still technology (15 tradings) and the real estate sector (12 tradings) followed by diversified industrial products (6 tradings), health (5 tradings) and tele-communications, media and entertainment and energy and utilities (four tradings each).At global level, despite the geopolitical trouble and financial ones, the activity of merger and acquisitions in the first part of 2022 was resilient, according to the analysis made by EY. In the first part of the yea there were 2,274 tradings, with a total value of 2.203 trillion dollars.EY is a company of professional services at global level, with 312,250 employees in over 700 offices in 150 countries and income of approximately 40 billion dollars in the fiscal year closed on 30th June 2021.