Deloitte: A slow start for mergers & acquisitions in 2018

Romania’s merger and acquisitions market has reached EUR 258 in the first quarter of 2018, a significantly lower amount compared to the same period of last year, according to an analysis by Deloitte Romania.

However, considering transactions with undisclosed amounts, the total value of the M&A market looks similar to the same period of last year, reaching between EUR 500 and 600 million.

Deloitte officials say that despite the slow start of 2018 after a record 2017, they remain confident about the full year.

In Q1 this year, a total of 19 transactions have been announced, including those with undisclosed values compared to 30 in the same period last year.

Ioana Filipescu, M&A partner at Deloitte, said: “The Series B capital raising of UiPath involving three of the world’s largest tech investment funds created the first Romanian unicorn, thus placing Romania on the map for technology investors. UiPath, a company with a stunning growth, confirms the rise of the local IT sector, the star of the Romanian economy in recent years. We expect to see other transactions in this field in the future, considering the increasing number of startups.”

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Deloitte’s analysis does not include the transactions with a value below EUR 5 million. A significant number of transactions below this threshold have been announced in Q1 of this year.

The largest transactions in Q1 were:

• Series B funding granted by Accel. Capital G and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers to the Romanian startup UiPath (USD 153 million);
• Unilever’s acquisition of ice cream manufacturer Betty Ice at the end of a competitive sale procedure (value not officially disclosed);
• The acquisition by GreenGold Asset Management AB/KB of Cascade Empire and forest management division Ocol Silvic Cascade Empire from Schweighofer Group. Cascade Empire owned over 14,000 hectares of forests in Romania (value not officially disclosed).