2020 in review: an extraordinary year for M&A in the marketing services and media sectors

45% fewer deals completed in the UK marketing services and media sectors in 2020 compared with 2019 – a huge reduction but not surprising given the impact of the Coronavirus on many businesses. We hope that fast-moving vaccination programmes will mean a return to normality in the latter half of 2021.

The majority of the deals that did take place last year were in the marketing services sector and, unsurprisingly, of those over half were in the digital space.

Private equity-backed investments accounted for 45% of all deals completing, up from a quarter of deals made in the sector in 2019.

Read more in our latest report.