New York, February 7, 2024 – SPS Founder & CEO Nadim Malik participated as a panelist on the Finquest deal sourcing webinar “Untapped Potential – Finding Hidden Deals in 2024” on Wednesday, February 7, 2024, along with Finquest Founder & CEO Tanguy Lesselin and Robert Creighton of Onex Transportation.
The discussion focused on data-driven methods for sourcing hidden deals in 2024.
The panel kicked off with Malik examining the state of deal flow with a look at 2023 annual M&A deal volume trends for private equity and strategic investors. Deal activity in North America, consisting of both control and minority transactions with PE or strategic buyers of at least $5 million of transaction value, was down just under 20%, after being down 14% in 2022. Q4 2023 deal activity specifically was down 45% off its peak two years which occurred in Q4 2021.
Despite the decline in deal volume, the panelists shared data insights revealing often-overlooked sources of deal flow that may be concealing attractive deals for both sponsors and strategic buyers.
Looking into Buyer-Interest Distribution by Revenue, 40% of companies are never or rarely being approached by buyers, indicating an untapped market riddled with inefficient deal sourcing practices that buyers, sell-side banks, and brokers can take advantage of.
The panelists also covered strategies to reveal hidden deals, pinpointing data as a key tool to enable deal sourcing in these scenarios.
The SPS 2023 Private Equity Harvest Report indicates over 5,100 platforms that were acquired by PE firms between 2012-2019 are still being held and may trade again, suggesting that hold periods are continuing to extend. This build-up indicates a potential surge of PE-backed opportunities coming to market in the months and years ahead.
To view the full webinar recording, click here or download the presentation slides here.