As we welcome in the end of the fiscal year so too do we ready ourselves for the onslaught of facts and figures about the growth or decline of individual businesses, sectors, or entire countries.
For those involved in the buying and selling of businesses, Dealogic’s look at global merger and acquisition (M&A) activity for the 12 months up to 31 March has been of real interest. Its results revealed that there has been a notable uptick in the number of ‘boutiques’ advising on M&As.
An M&A boutique is essentially a smaller firm – outside of the traditional big names in the financial services industry – that advise on M&As, largely deals involving SMEs. These companies are, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) remarks, often “helmed by heavyweights who have left big banks”.
According to Dealogic’s research, boutiques advised on 33 per cent of the entire M&A volume over the last three months. While in Europe this figure may fall to just under one fifth (18 per cent), this is still a huge rise from the one per cent they advised on in the first quarter of 2009.
The WSJ notes that there has been a notable decline in the number of large M&As but the overall volume has grown. The boutiques, which advise on smaller sales, have thrived as a result and now they represent a genuine challenger to the big names that have previously dominated the market – the likes of Citi, Barclays, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan.
Writing for the WSJ, Nick Kostov boldly stated: “In Europe, a new generation of independents is taking hold.” He points to Robertson Robey Associates advising the Vodafone board on its $10 billion acquisition of Ono as evidence of this. Likewise, in just its first six months in operation, London-based Zaoui & Co, has advised L’Oréal on a €6 billion and is advising the Peugeot family on a proposed deal with Chinese company Dongfeng.
What Dealogic’s end of the financial year figures show is that the M&A market is changing, if not full recovered. Increasing competitiveness from smaller advisory firms, coupled with the number of smaller deals rising in spite of a lingering reluctance for large firm to enter into the bigger deals, is creating new opportunities for companies that have been muscled out of the M&A space. 
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