Ahead of the Deal: The M&A Deal Report 2026

Tony Damian:

Hello everyone. I’m Tony Damian.

Amelia Morgan:

And I'm Amelia Morgan.

Tony Damian:

And welcome to Ahead of the Deal. In this, our first episode, we thought we'd cover the 2026 public M&A report, which examines what happens in takeovers and schemes.

Amelia, what did happen in public M&A in Australia in 2025?

Amelia Morgan:

In 2025, it was a strong year for M&A in Australia. Slightly down on prior years, 2024 and 2023 in particular, but still a good year. Forty binding deals above $50 million in value. We had eight mega deals, so we call those deals above $1 billion in value. Again, slightly down on the past couple of years, but still a good year.

Overall deal value was $38.7 billion, so a pretty strong year for that too.

Interestingly, there were four deals which made up 61% of all deal value. Those were:
Brickworks’ and Soul Patts’ merger, CC Capital's proposed acquisition of Insignia. We also had the National Storage REIT deal with Brookfield and GIC involved, and we had the Gold Fields acquisition of Gold Road Resources.

And interestingly, again, Ashurst advised on three out of four of those deals.

Tony Damian:

Well, three out of four ain't bad.

Amelia Morgan:

Indeed.

Tony Damian:

So it sounds like a pretty strong year.

When I look at an M&A stretch I like to think, well, who was actually doing the bidding? So what was the buy-side of the equation? And when I looked at the facts and figures in the public M&A report two things jumped out at me.

The first is the level of foreign interest. And so system average 50% of bidders in takeovers we expect to be foreign, last year it was closer to two thirds. And of that two thirds, 40% were from North America, which was significantly up on what we'd seen in the past couple of years. So I thought that was interesting.

The other area that was interesting, and no review of public M&A is complete without
reference to private capital, usually followed by the phrase "dry powder", but they were there in a third of deals, and a very strong end to the year. So you mentioned Insignia, you mentioned National Storage, both great examples of private capital being active in Australian public M&A.

Amelia Morgan:

So structures are a really good topic to be talking about. So cash was king in 2025. We saw cash in 73% of all deals, just all cash consideration. Scrip consideration much less common. And cash and scrip consideration even less common, again, at only 2% of deals. We saw stub equity in quite a few deals, particularly sponsor deals.

Hostile deals, the other end of the spectrum, very few hostile deals in 2025. We only saw three hostile deals and only one successful one. So very, very small number
compared to prior years.

Pre-bid arrangements, on the other hand, again, really, really strong. So 73% of deals had pre-bid arrangements, showing the importance of a successful outcome for deals, needing pre-bid arrangements.

But I don't want to get ahead of ourselves, Tony, because we're going to have a whole other episode on that topic. There’s obviously so many ways you can go about a pre-bid arrangement. It's not just buying a shareholding in the target.

Tony Damian:

It's not, indeed. And that is an episode to really look forward to. I know I can hardly wait for that one.

So that was, it was a good year. Interesting on the bidder front, interesting on the structure front. What does it mean for 2026? I think it means a few things.

I think, firstly, that whole foreign flow, the fact we were at two thirds of bids were from foreign bidders and the strength of the North American corridor, I think that will continue, so I think we're going to see a lot of interest, particularly from the US.

I also think, we mentioned private capital, we always mention dry powder, I think that's going to be a strong year, for private capital in public M&A and I think really, really strong start to the year. We've seen the Qube deal signed, two of the big consortium members there, we've got a superannuation fund. There's also a family office that's involved. And so, private capital on display for all to see.

I think, if I had to pick a couple of sectors, I would look to energy. I think we'll see some strong deals showing there and also tech. Turbulent time at the moment, but I think it'll deliver up quite a few deals this year.

And the final thing to watch out for, the regulatory side of things, a few changes with FIRB, a few potential changes with ASX and shareholder voting. But of course, none of those changes has anything on the 1 January implementation of the new merger regime. We're a little way in, but that sounds to me like that would be another great episode to cover, Amelia.

Amelia Morgan:

Indeed, so 2026 looks like it’ll be a really interesting year.

Tony Damian:

I think it will.

Amelia Morgan:

So that's it for this episode. Until next time...

Tony Damian:

Stay Ahead of the Deal.