Henry Wells Featured in Mergermarket: M&A in the Face of Historic Uncertainty

Henry Wells, Managing Director and Head of Duff & Phelps’ UK M&A Advisory practice, was recently interviewed by Mergermarket and featured in a newsletter titled “M&A in the Face of Historic Uncertainty,” published in association with Imprima. Mergermarket, on behalf of Imprima, spoke with six experts from the corporate advisory, law, technology and academia fields to hear their insights on how COVID-19 is impacting dealmaking, and how this will shape the M&A landscape for the foreseeable future.

Henry commented, “I think we are going to see the growing trend of strategic bolt-ons for trade platforms, both within corporates and PE portfolio companies. Once PEs and strategics have a better idea of how their businesses will operate post-COVID-19, they’ll look at how to deploy their money towards assets they believe will be winners.”

He added, “I think there will be a lot more opportunistic M&A, which will probably fall into two buckets. One is the opportunistic buyer that has a strong balance sheet and was already planning acquisitions and now finds itself in a position where it might be able to buy an interesting target for a different value, albeit with a different risk profile. The other category of buyers are ones that have raised funds for exactly these sorts of distressed situations.”

Read the newsletter here.

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