Mazars CEE Deal Advisory Highlights 2020

Our highlights showcase a selection of projects that we advised on throughout the region.

Reflecting on the year, there are 5 key themes that have directed and influenced Mazars’ transactional activity in CEE:

1. Impact of Covid-19 on M&A dealmaking

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, M&A deal flow has been slightly reduced, lockdown and confinement restrictions made it challenging to complete deals when potential buyers and sellers could not meet physically.

However, despite these potentially significant challenges, we sense a level of optimism and resilience from the private equity community and our personal experience tells us that quality transactions will still be delivered.

2. Selected sectors benefited from the pandemic

While the coronavirus pandemic has had a negative impact on many businesses throughout 2020, certain sectors have taken on greater importance as a result of Covid-19. Consequently, much of the

M&A activity has been concentrated in virus-resilient industries such as healthcare & pharmaceuticals, technology or food & beverage.

The deployment of 5G has also positively influenced transactions in the telecommunication sector, while growing attention paid to green energies have created opportunities in renewables.

3. Succession planning on the rise

30 years after the fall of communism, more and more business owners are aging, and as we see those folks moving toward retirement, they start thinking about succession. Selling the company is naturally an option they tend to consider.

4. PE funds more and more attracted by CEE

More and more Private Equity funds and Venture Capital funds are headquartered in cities like Warsaw, Vienna, Moscow, Prague, Budapest, Bucharest, Bratislava or Zagreb. Others cover the CEE from London or Luxembourg. Year after year, the interest to invest in the region is growing.

5. More and more CEE firms invest abroad

Last but not least, an increasing number of companies from Central & Eastern Europe decides to acquire targets outside the region, notably in Western Europe (Germany, France, United Kingdom,

Spain, Italy…), the USA, Africa or South-East Asia. This is particularly true for CEE firms which are among the market leaders in their niche sector or subsector.

We expect these themes to still influence the CEE deal activity in the medium term.