Looking at the dry numbers against 2021, there is a noticeable slowdown, although this is not a fair comparison as the level of deal activity in 2021 (at levels last seen in 2015) was brought on by the bottleneck and backlog of deals due to the COVID pandemic. In the year to end-September, DealMakers recorded 257 deals by exchange-listed companies, valued at R475,8bn (pg4). The real estate sector dominated the deal activity (30%), followed by resources (12%) and technology (11%). 

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Many companies expanded outside local borders, in search of higher growth opportunities. This was particularly true of local exchange-listed companies, as seen in the ‘M&A in Numbers’ section (pg8) in this issue, which shows that of the cross-border deals recorded in the period, 50% were focused either on deeper expansion into the rest of Africa, or beyond in the UK. Despite economic headwinds, M&A advisers believe that many factors remain conducive to sustained levels of corporate activity across various industry sectors, and deal pipelines are full. 

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Interestingly, bearing in mind that DealMakers also tracks the M&A activity of foreign companies with secondary listings on the JSE, for the first time in a while, the top three largest deals by value for the period involve SA-domiciled companies: Gold Fields acquisition of Yamana Gold (which appears in jeopardy with a competitive bid now in play), Remgro’s joint acquisition of Mediclinic International, and the Sanlam joint venture with Alliance of their African assets (pg6).