Mergers and acquisition transactions will ‘remain difficult to execute’, say three leading partners at the London office of global law firm Linklaters. And those deals that attempt to get off the ground will ‘involve a number of barriers to completion’, such as shareholder approval, regulatory issues or general market reaction.

Opportunistic

The forecast report comes from three of the firm’s biggest M&A hitters: Jeremy Parr, head of the firm’s corporate division, Charlie Jacobs, head of mining and Owen Clay, head of energy.
While generally cautious, their report flags up some potentially positive developments, maintaining that ‘opportunistic M&A and consolidation looks more likely to pick up in 2013. Large and mid-cap corporates with strong cash flow and access to debt could make strategic acquisitions.’

Energised

Mr Clay points to some specific activity in the energy sector that could keep specialist lawyers in that field busy next year. He foresees ‘increasing divestment activity from the oil and gas majors as they focus on core assets and geographies, increasing interest in the sector from financial investors, and capital commitments outstripping cash flows for some smaller players serving as the drivers of upstream M&A activity’.
However, the Linklaters forecast falls against a generally downbeat view of the global economy for 2013. Britain’s Forum of Private Business says in a report released this week that the eurozone crisis is far from resolved and that the UK itself remains threatened by the prospect of a ‘triple dip’ recession.