Locations
Fieldfisher's UK M&A team advised on over £1.4 billion-worth of deals in 2020, across more than 60 separate transactions for clients in a range of sectors.
The UK M&A market noticeably gathered pace towards the end of 2020, as Covid-19 vaccine approvals restored confidence, businesses rushed to beat the end of the Brexit transition period and overseas bidders began circling UK targets that had been weakened financially by the pandemic.
Despite this late surge, deal volume was slightly down on 2019, largely due to a period of uncertainty shortly after the UK's first national lockdown was announced, which deterred both buyers and sellers from pursuing transactions.
The firm was particularly active on deals across the tech sector, commercial real estate, media and entertainment and energy and natural resources.
Business and professional services was also a busy area as consolidation of SME service-providers by serial acquirers drove deal-making.
Commenting on Fieldfisher's 2020 UK deal portfolio, corporate partner Tim Bird said:
"Although M&A activity faced some headwinds last year, many transformational and high-quality transactions did get done.
"Fieldfisher's M&A practice continues to grow, supported by the firm's very strong equity capital markets team and our venture capital practice, which continue to yield excellent deals, as well as our M&A teams in international offices across the Fieldfisher network.
"Covid-19 lockdowns helped drive deal activity in the tech sector and media and entertainment in particular, as both businesses and consumers responded quickly to new circumstances.
"2021 is already looking like a busy year for our M&A group and we look forward to reporting on our performance."
Download a copy of our 2020 M&A deal wrap.
About Fieldfisher
Fieldfisher is a European law firm with market leading practices in many of the world's most dynamic sectors.
We are an exciting, forward-thinking organisation with a particular focus on energy & natural resources, technology, finance & financial services, life sciences and media.
We have M&A professionals in 15 offices across Europe. All of these offices have stand-alone full-service offerings. Depending on the nature of the deal, we work independently to support local and international businesses in those jurisdictions/regions, or we collaborate with our colleagues in other offices to deliver a seamless service for out-bound and in-bound buy and sell-side mandates.
Our network has more than 1,700 people working across 25 offices providing highly commercial advice based on an in-depth understanding of our clients' needs.
We operate across our offices in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Beijing, Belfast, Birmingham, Bologna, Brussels, Dublin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Guangzhou, Hamburg, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Manchester, Milan, Munich, Paris, Rome, Shanghai, Turin, Venice and Silicon Valley.
