Roland Berger publishes Private Equity newsletters on a regular basis. This is our latest issue featuring information about closed deals and the new deal flow between January and June 2017.

PE-related deal activity in H1 2017 has been good, amounting to 94 closed deals in the German-speaking region (up from 53 deals in H1 2016). Also deal flow has been strong, especially in Q1 2017; market participants widely expect this strong deal activity to continue into the second half of the year with an above-average deal flow over the summer months. Deal activity is driven by a combination of favorable financing, a robust economy, and ample dry powder.

From an industry perspective, consumer goods and engineered products had the highest deal activity in H1 2017 with 22% and 21% share of the overall deal flow, respectively. This is followed by IT/Telecoms (13% of deal flow), healthcare (12%) and automotive (12%). Activity in automotive almost doubled compared to the same period last year, driven amongst others also by the sale of European carbon-related assets. In terms of target size, smaller mid-cap deals accounted for the majority of closed deals, but with a stable share of large-cap transactions.