Arma Partners celebrated the firm’s fifteenth anniversary and a record year in 2018, having advised on 26 deals with a cumulative value over $10 billion within the Global Communications, Media & Technology (CMT) sector

This activity included three private-equity-backed deals valued at over $1 billion – The Access Group’s strategic investment from Hg, the recapitalisation of IRIS by ICG and EQT’s acquisition of SUSE – as well as $1.7 billion of transactions in the HealthTech sector, where the firm has built a leading franchise, and over $200 million in capital raised for fast-growing companies. In addition, Arma further strengthened its senior team with the appointments of Jeremie Sokolowsky as Partner covering Media & Internet and Bruno Nehmé as Managing Director covering FinTech, while continuing to expand its team at all other levels.

Arma’s activity in 2018 mirrors certain broader trends currently shaping M&A within the CMT sector. Arma’s leading position in European large-cap Software buyouts (we have advised on six of the 10 largest European Software buyouts of the past five years) reflects investors’ appetite for stable, high-margin, high-quality Software assets, where Arma has been able to drive several pre-emptive deals at premium multiples. Similarly, the emergence of Arma’s HealthTech practice was initiated by our firm to address the proliferation of sizeable digital health companies that are attracting sustained private equity interest and, more generally, the way in which technology continues to revolutionise every industry vertical, including Healthcare. M&A within the Internet Infrastructure space has also remained a prominent feature of both Arma’s deal activity and the sector landscape as a whole, a trend we expect to accelerate further in 2019 as the Internet of Things revolution continues to gather pace. Meanwhile, within FinTech, European-headquartered companies have both raised financing rounds in increasing volume and, in the case of businesses such as FundAssist and Creditcall, attracted high levels of strategic interest from US buyers driven by Europe’s advanced payments ecosystem, high level of regulatory change and pioneering technology initiatives.

About Arma Partners

Established in 2003, Arma Partners provides independent corporate finance advice to the global Communications, Media & Technology sector, operating from offices in London, Munich, New York and Palo Alto and through affiliates in Istanbul, São Paulo, Sydney, Tel Aviv and Tokyo. www.armapartners.com