Watch 'Private Equity and the new landscape of Financial Buyers in M&A’

Some of the key discussion points:

• The uncertainty of the US election and its impact on both COVID trends and tax law is making the market hesitant to make big moves until the new year – but many are optimistic that we will see a rebound in 2021.
• Investment in e-commerce and communication technologies looks promising due to remote working becoming normalized and changes in consumer behaviour.
• Investment in real estate, outside of urban warehouses benefitting from e-commerce, is a less appealing space.
• Companies that support the digitization of supply chain management will continue to be appealing investments for PE focused on the logistics sector.
• Private Equity currently holds over a trillion dollars in dry powder, which leaves many hopeful that an uptick in earnest investment will be seen as the pandemic weakens and low-priced assets become more appealing.
• The logistics space should see an interesting pattern of mergers over the next five years where traditional, established organizations in T&L start making more and more deals with startups with less industry experience but strong technology offerings to optimize old processes.
• VCs in the logistics arena are traditionally focused on technology plays, whereas the freedom of cashflow that comes with ‘asset lite’ businesses makes them an appealing prospect to the PE space – as they allow for acquisition debt to quickly be paid off, accelerating returns.
• Independent/fundless sponsors can show a lot of value to PEs by either being due-diligence workhorses, or by displaying a consistent ability to discover innovative companies and teeing-up relationships for the PE prior to those companies moving to auction. There must also be an alignment of interests and strategies.