Emerging Europe M&A 2015/2016 report

Emerging Europe

CMS has launched the 5th edition of the CMS and EMIS DealWatch ‘Emerging Europe: M&A Report’. Having completed more deals than any other CEE-based law firm, CMS is ideally placed to comment on the M&A activity in the region, based on data compiled by EMIS. The report pulls together a list of the biggest M&A transactions across 15 countries across the CEE/SEE region, provides commentary on what happened in 2015, and makes some predictions on where deals are expected to emerge in 2016.

It also includes insight from William Wells, Executive Vice-Chairman, Central and Eastern Europe, Rothschild, who oversees the group’s business in the region, as well as special features on the commercial real estate sector and capital markets developments in CEE.

Report highlights:

  • CEE was relatively flat with a 3% decline in announced deals, but a sharper 15% decline in total value, while the 2015 global M&A market saw more deals with more value than any year since 2007.
  • Investors no longer regard Central and Eastern Europe as a coherent investment area as countries in the region present increasingly different risk profiles.
  • Private equity fund investment went up 16%. The largest transactions predominantly attracted US and UK investors.
  • Manufacturing was the most targeted sector, followed by Telecoms & IT and Real Estate.
  • Poland, Hungary, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina saw an increase in deals – both in value and volume – from 2014.

We have received excellent feedback from our clients and the market about this report over the last five years and hope that you will find this year’s edition equally useful.

To download a copy of the report, please click on the 'Download publication' link.

Please do get in touch to let us know what you thought of the report or if you have any questions you would like to discuss with our CEE M&A team.