Daniel Black
Hello,
News broke this week that ITV is in talks to sell its broadcast division to Sky for £1.6bn. However, it’s worth noting that negotiations are in the early stages and the deal would very likely attract regulatory attention. According to the FT, the combined business would own 70% of the UK TV advertising market.
And in other news:
- BP might have found a buyer for its Castrol unit
- The UK economy contracted by 0.1% in September
- Permira agreed a £2.7bn deal to buy UK-listed fund administrator JTC
Thanks for reading, and as always you can connect with me on LinkedIn to discuss how Ideals VDR can help with your next M&A deal.
Deal Tracker
Our weekly roundup of all the confirmed M&A deals in the UK.
The rumour mill
- How Cinven came to be haunted by a decade-old pharma deal
- British Fintech Zilch raises $177m as fintech eyes M&A opportunities
- Howden makes UK acquisition as it looks to continue growth in employee benefits sector
- Royal London deal set to transform Dalmore Capital
- Small-business lender Iwoca weighs sale
- OakNorth eyes UK, US niche acquisitions; IPO not on near-term agenda
- Sky in talks to buy ITV television business for £1.6bn
- USA Rare Earth gets UK regulatory approval for acquisition of Less Common Metals
- Teck held on-off M&A talks with rival to Anglo for two years
- Permira agrees £2.7bn deal to buy JTC
- Blackstone leads £1.5bn private credit deal for JTC Buyout
- Costa Coffee attracts takeover interest from backer of China’s Luckin, Centrium
- Greencore clears key hurdle in Bakkavor deal, targets early 2026 completion
- Profit at Zaoui brothers’ boutique jumps to record £9.3m
- BP in active talks with Stonepeak over Castrol sale, sources say
- City of London’s broker shakeout puts a spotlight on Peel Hunt
- Blackstone gets more time for Big Yellow bid as UK budget looms
- Barclays Gets Big Orders for First Euro AT1 Since 2014
- BC Partners inks SCM insurance deal to form £3.25 billion group
- UK communications provider SCG is said to mull £800 million sale
- Perwyn to exit Lowe Rental with 5.3x return
- IK Partners to invest in Endrix
- Market data firm BMLL posts £14m loss ahead of Nordic Capital takeover
Industry news
- UK economy unexpectedly contracted by 0.1% in September, with weaker UK growth and disruptions like JLR cyberattack raising expectations of a December rate cuts
- UK interest rates coming closer to levelling out, BoE governor says
- UK housing market slows as confidence falls ahead of budget, RICS survey shows
- UK consumer spending slows ahead of Black Friday and budget
- UK’s FTSE 100 hits record close as US shutdown nears end
- Sterling snaps four-day rising streak after jobs data
Salaries and bonuses
- European traders beg for bigger bonuses
- Hedge fund Eisler Capital is offering some fine severance packages
Job moves
- Permira names Mark Solomons as senior adviser
- Arcmont adds three senior hires to investment team
- Connection Capital appoints new Head of Business Development
- The Barton Partnership appoints VP
- ICG appoints Senior Advisor for Canada
- Barclays hires Etienne for senior M&A role in France
- Nomura’s job cuts go deeper than a London prop desk
Market trends
Stalling growth
You’ve seen the gloomy headlines: the UK economy unexpectedly contracted in September, consumer spending slowed, and the housing market cooled ahead of the Budget. Rachel Reeves is raising taxes by £30bn annually, not because of economic collapse (despite what politicians would have you believe) but largely because the OBR finally corrected years of over-optimistic productivity forecasts, according to FT’s Chris Giles.
Yet while Britain’s economic reality settles into a decidedly underwhelming 1.4% growth trajectory, the country’s leveraged loan market is quietly having its best year on record. Bloomberg notes that sterling junk loans have posted a record £21.2bn in issuance through early November.
The catalyst is an illiquidity premium exceeding 100 basis points, with sterling term loans pricing at 500 basis points in Q4 versus 380 for euro and 302 for dollar equivalents. That yield pickup is drawing private credit giants like Apollo, Ares, and Blackstone into major buyouts including KKR’s £4.2bn Spectris acquisition and Advent’s takeover of Reckitt’s home-care unit.
PE bets on new power generation
While speculation mounts over whether AI is the next dot-com bubble, PE is placing a different bet: the power infrastructure needed to run it all.
According to PitchBook, European energy deals hit €38.6 billion across 245 transactions so far this year, already surpassing 2023 levels and on track to overshadow last year’s €42bn record. Regardless of AI’s ultimate trajectory, data centers are consuming electricity at unprecedented rates, with Goldman forecasting European data center demand will increase the continent’s power consumption by 10-15% over the next decade, potentially adding 100 gigawatts of new capacity by 2030-35.
PE giants like Apollo are leading through a $6.5bn commitment for half of Ørsted’s Hornsea 3 offshore wind farm, following earlier commitments of £4.5bn for EDF’s UK nuclear projects and €3.2bn for Germany’s grid expansion with RWE. Falling interest rates from both the ECB and BoE have sweetened the financing equation, while foreign capital participation has reached €33.9bn, making 2025 the strongest year for international investment in European energy.
Cornerstone comeback
Cornerstone investors are staging a comeback in EMEA IPOs, with deals featuring pre-committed anchor investors reaching $11.1bn this year, up sharply from $4.1bn in 2024. Cornerstones deliver execution certainty but lock in pricing early, reducing flexibility if sentiment improves during marketing.
Major deals like Verisure’s Stockholm listing (backed by €1.38bn from Alecta, AMF, GIC, and others) and Ottobock’s €750m Frankfurt debut (supported by Kühne Holding and Capital Group) demonstrate the model in action. Within the UK, Applied Nutrition’s London listing featured Asda co-owner Mohsin Issa among its cornerstone group, lending social proof that helped attract hesitant investors.
The practice remains more frequent in Europe than the US, driven partly by Nordic market conventions where pension foundations routinely lock in allocations upfront.
Who’s top of the Global Markets charts?
Finally, here’s a look at the 9M25 Global Markets Rankings from Dealogic.
IPOs
