The mergers and acquisitions market in Romania, transactions signed and concluded, reached 5.4 billion euros last year, surpassing the pre-pandemic level of 5.2 billion euro in 2019, an evolution supported by the transaction of over one billion euros of the Neptun Deep acquisition by Romgaz. If the transactions announced last year, but which have not yet been completed, are added to this amount, the value reaches 6.6 billion euro.

“2022 was a very good year for the M&A market in Romania, with important transactions that reshape and take the development of certain sectors to a new stage. The year 2023 is shaping up to be just as interesting: there is sufficient liquidity, there are investors interested in Romania and there are many transactions to be completed in important fields such as energy, real estate, health and telecommunications,” said Dinu Bumbăcea, Country Managing Partner PwC Romania.

In 2023, the value of concluded and announced transactions could reach 8 billion euros, given the completion of two transactions of over one billion euros, one in the energy field having already been announced.

“There is a gap between the value of the transactions actually concluded and those announced, some of which will be completed this year. In 2022, the M&A market finally returned to the pre-pandemic level and it was the year when we can say that Romania became a megadeal market, because we have three consecutive years of transactions over one billion euros (CEZ in 2020, UiPath in 2021, respectively Neptun Deep in 2022). We are optimistic about 2023, there are many deals expected to close this year. In our opinion, this theoretical target of 8 billion euros is achievable only if, apart from the energy transaction announced today, a new mega transaction is also announced,” said George Ureche, Director and M&A Leader of PwC Romania.

The Romanian market is influenced by very large transactions, which for the local sector mean over 100 million euros, because transactions over 1 billion euros are rare and few. The average value of a transaction last year was of 21 million euros, well above the level of 2021, with the real estate sector being the one that recorded a significant increase in the average value of transactions.

The most dynamic sectors were IT&C, industrial products and services, real estate, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, energy and agriculture.

Corporate investors still have a significant stake in the buyer segment of the local market, being active in all sectors.

IT&C is seeing an increasing number of buy-side investment funds as the sector’s high returns have led them to acquire and consolidate.

At the opposite pole, in the agriculture and consumer goods sector, there are mainly trades made by strategic buy-side investors.