M&A activity resilient to Brexit

In part one of an exclusive two part video interview – filmed at this year’s Food Manufacture​ Business Leaders’ Forum, sponsored by law firm DWF LLP – Black highlighted the continued investment in food and drink, in spite of less favourable predictions.

“There has been a reasonable level of continuity in the British food industry M&A activity levels in 2018 versus 2017, which might surprise some people, given there was a prophet of doom in 2016 that the world would come to an end,”​ said Black. “As we found in a whole number of spheres, continuity has been the order of the day.​

‘Life will go on’​

“If we look into the future, there are some short-term factors. There is a hiatus around Brexit, which is fast closing in over the next eight weeks, which has implications for businesses’ risk appetite – both at home and abroad. But whatever happens, life will go on and we expect deal activity to continue.”​

While the appetite for M&As is still visible, there remains an issue in financing deals. This stemmed from a lack of sterling to leverage acquisitions. However, the UK would remain a very attractive market for investment, claimed Black.

‘Large food market’​

“First of all, the UK is a very large food market,”​ he added. “Sixty five million people live here and they’re relatively affluent, therefore it’s a sizable source of food demand. It’s also a relatively advanced food market. We have world-leading food retailers in terms of systems and processes.​

“There is a lot of innovation in terms of where the food industry is going, which makes it an interesting market to look at. There have been – and there will continue to be – trophy assets in that arena.”​

Meanwhile, look out for the second part of this exclusive interview, as well as more coverage from this year’s Business Leaders’ Forum in next month’s issue of Food Manufacture​ magazine and online.

Music: Tech Live Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/