After the technology sector, the life sciences and industrials sectors are expected to see the highest growth in cross-border M&A activity in 2024, closely followed by natural resources. 

Trends such as onshoring and reshuffling of global supply chains are thought to be a key deal driver as businesses look to become more resilient to macroeconomic factors. Global supply chains have been disrupted by recent conflicts and geopolitical uncertainty, leading many to believe the global supply chain may not be as global as we thought. 

Securing supply chains accelerating M&A activity

Governments around the world are responding to supply-chain threats with legislation to bolster national and regional autonomy, which is causing dealmaking in everything from batteries to semiconductors to accelerate.

For example, if you look at what Europe is doing with the Critical Raw Materials Act, it is focused on diversifying suppliers, strengthening the value chain and improving circularity and sustainability.

Alongside that, you have the Foreign Subsidies Regulation and the US Inflation Reduction Act – you can see that there competition is heating up for money going into sectors such as green energy and net zero technologies (in that the U.S. is providing funds as “carrots” to investment, while the EU’s focus is to relax state aid and other regulatory constraints). 

What next?

These regulatory changes are going to have an impact on investments in green energy and net zero technologies. How will this affect the predicted levels of cross-border M&A?

Read our Global M&A trends and risk report for more details.