Insights | May 11, 2023

Roschier Insights Seminar: The M&A market now and in the future

At a recent, well-attended breakfast seminar, our M&A experts and the invited panelists offered comprehensive points of view on the M&A market and what is expected for the future. ESG was mentioned as an important factor that will gain even more importance in mergers and acquisitions in the future, even though it may mean different things to different stakeholders.

Maria Brunow, a partner in IK Partners’ Mid Cap Investment team in Stockholm, reflected on the state of the M&A market from the Private Equity point of view and concluded that the debt crisis is blooming while inflation remains high. Buyers and sellers see and think about the world very differently – the increased due diligence requirements mean that there are no shortcuts and no pre-emptions to be made. According to what she is seeing from the outside, corporations are taking the opportunity to de-calibrate their current business setup, increasingly focusing on core activities, which leads to divestments and high-priority M&A deals.

Tero Jormanainen and Jouni Salmi, partners in Roschier’s M&A practice, listed some observations and learnings from the post-covid M&A frenzy, noting that foreign direct investments are more common, and probably will continue to be, while, from the lawyer’s point of view, valuation, deal security, and the allocation of responsibility after mergers and acquisitions will continue to be high on the agenda.

A panel comprising Riikka Tieaho (Wolt), Nina Kiviranta (Metso), Ari Mäkelä (BNP Paribas) and Kiira Tuohimaa-Leisio (Roschier), with Tero Jormanainen (Roschier) as moderator, discussed what the future will bring in M&A and what we have learned from the past. They analyzed the changes brought on by the Covid-19 years and the changes that need to happen in the future to keep the M&A-markets stable.