Daniel Black
Ask a healthcare dealmaker how the market is doing and you’ll probably hear “busy”.
Ask what it takes to win a deal, and the answer gets more interesting.
In this week’s editorial, I look at Eclipse’s Q3 Healthcare M&A Review. It shows strong volumes, with elderly care making up around a fifth of UK healthcare deals. But from NHS insourcing to specialist care, demand alone no longer commands a premium. Buyers want capabilities that are hard to rebuild.
The care market proved the point this week. Strong Life Care tripled in size with 18 homes from Maria Mallaband Care Homes, while Highgate Care Homes added 15 more. That’s two of the 50 deals in the tracker.
Thanks for reading, and connect with me on LinkedIn if you want to discuss how I can help with your next M&A deal.
Building connections to get a headstart in M&A
In the latest episode of The Deal Track, Charlotte speaks with Jinkai Chan, a Senior Associate in energy and infrastructure advisory at JLL.
Jinkai joined as an intern and now advises on M&A deals across Europe, America, and APAC.
She talks about learning finance from scratch, the language and cultural barriers she faced early in her career, and why she thinks networking is a muscle you can train.
Listen today on Spotify or M&A Community.
Weekly summary | 06.11.2026
This week we tracked 50 deals with UK and Irish involvement, and industrials and energy did the heavy lifting with 14 of them. The headline act was Stonepeak, which completed its purchase of a 65% stake in Castrol from bp in a deal valuing the lubricants business at around $10.1bn.
Corporates are pruning, sponsors are buying. Castrol was not the only brand to change hands this way. L’Occitane sold ELEMIS to PAI Partners, Aspen offloaded the European rights to Ovestin for €197m, and Cinven picked up Theramex from PAI and Carlyle. It is the pattern our CFO editorial flagged a fortnight ago: as corporates focus on their core, private capital is ready to step in.
Care consolidation is in full swing. In a neat echo of this week’s editorial, 42 care homes changed hands across three deals, led by Strong Life Care, which tripled in size with 18 homes from Maria Mallaband. Highgate Care Homes added 15 more, and nine former Qualia homes found a buyer after a landmark High Court ruling.
More than half the deals crossed a border. Overseas buyers from the US, Germany, the Netherlands and Israel came in for UK assets, from RENK’s £150m David Brown Defence deal to Econergy’s 106MW battery portfolio. UK groups were just as busy abroad, with Revolut buying in Argentina, Bridgepoint in France and M&G in Belgium.
Healthcare buyers grow pickier as deals pile up
UK healthcare M&A had a busy summer. But a busy market is not the same as an easy one.
According to Eclipse Corporate Finance’s Healthcare M&A Review Q3 2026, deal volumes were very strong in the third quarter, likely boosted by owners keen to complete before the Autumn Budget and any tax changes it might bring.
Care leads the way
Elderly care was the busiest corner of the market, accounting for around a fifth of deals, followed by medical equipment (15.5%) and digital health (12.1%). Clinical services and specialist care made up much of the rest.
Demand is no longer the differentiator
Look beneath the volumes, though, and a clear pattern emerges across the sectors Eclipse puts in focus: buyers are paying for capability rather than simple exposure to a growing market.
- Clinical insourcing: England still had 7.27 million incomplete referral-to-treatment pathways in June 2026, yet 69 suppliers now compete on the NHS insourcing framework, so a place on it no longer sets anyone apart.
- Specialist care: consolidators remain active, with more than 80 deals since January 2025, but they are buying more selectively as exits at the top of the market slow.
- Pharma market access: buyers favour integrated platforms or deep specialists, leaving the undifferentiated generalist in the weakest position.
Private equity is still shopping
Sponsors have not stepped back. Q3 brought new platforms from Hg (Nourish Care), Ethos Partners (Labyrinth Dental), Mayfair (Well Life Clinic), Endurance Capital (Forge Care) and Growth Partner (Healthxchange), all with a clear focus on businesses whose capabilities are hard to replicate.
What it means for dealmakers
For owners, the question has shifted from “Is my market growing?” to “What would a buyer struggle to rebuild?” Quality ratings, staffing stability, management depth and specialist know-how are now doing much of the work in valuations.
With last week’s Budget halving Business Asset Disposal Relief from April 2027, the incentive to sell sooner rather than later remains. But the bar for a premium price is clearly higher.
Jobs Highlights
Rumour mill
- Mobico’s board has backed a £308m takeover offer from Spain’s Autobuses de León, owned by the Cosmen family and Asterion.
- AstraZeneca made a $10bn offer for US obesity drugmaker Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, sources say.
- Greenland Energy has extended to 10 November the deadline to firm up its all-share offer for AIM-listed 80 Mile.
Venture & fundraising
- Revolut has reached a $115bn valuation following a secondary share sale.
- Igneo Infrastructure Partners has closed its European Diversified Infrastructure Fund IV at its €6bn hard cap.
- Property lending platform CrowdProperty has secured a £100m forward-flow funding partnership with ColCap.
- Supermarket Income REIT has raised £60m to fund the purchase of 12 grocery properties for £65.2m.
- Birmingham-based Aliter Capital has raised a £50m fund to back growing technology businesses.
- Evertrue Capital has closed a €15m debut fund backed by the British Business Bank and Phoenix Court.
- London-based Tallia has raised €4m to bring AI-powered research and review tools to tax firms.
- Commercial credit start-up Crediflow AI has raised £1.5m, backed by Haatch, to scale its AI-native platform.
Regulatory
- Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has issued a public interest intervention notice on Sky’s proposed £1.6bn acquisition of ITV’s media and entertainment business.
- India’s competition regulator has cleared Xavier Niel’s €5.1bn purchase of a stake of more than 16% in Vodafone.
- Romania’s competition authority is investigating Hg’s takeover of the local units of software group Entersoft One.
- HealthSpan Investments has notified the CCPC of its plan to take sole control of Primary Sláinte.
- Vital Community Care has notified the CCPC of its plan to take sole control of Beechfield Healthcare.
Job moves
- Asda has named former Morrisons boss David Potts as chief executive to lead its turnaround.
- Funding Circle has appointed Rob Straathof as chief executive, subject to regulatory approval.
- BAE Systems has appointed Shobie Ramakrishnan as a non-executive director.
- Deloitte has named James Brass as practice senior partner for the South East.
- Withers has hired international arbitration partner Giacomo Rojas Elgueta as co-head of its global arbitration practice.
