HORIZONS - BDO’s Global View of Mid-Market Deal Activity (Issue 1|2017)

Welcome to the first BDO HORIZONS of 2017, in which our M&A professionals review the past
year and analyse what lies ahead.

At our annual BDO Corporate Finance conference in Copenhagen last November, we were able to discuss face-to-face the most significant M&A developments of 2016 across where BDO operates. In this issue we share the results and look ahead to 2017. And how is the new year shaping up?

In 2016, political decisions were at the fore. In June 2016 came the Brexit decision, while December saw the resignation of Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, cash chaos in India and, of course, the election of Donald Trump in the US. We consider how these events all impacted  economies, markets and M&A activity.

Looking ahead to 2017, economic factors, like the interest rate decisions of the American national bank and the European central bank, will of course influence markets. But politics will continue to play a leading part, with elections in March in the Netherlands, in April/May in France, in May in Iran, in October in Germany and in October/November in China. This will impact M&A markets, but it’s too early to predict how they will be affected.