
The UK financial services industry saw a rise of 17.4% in overall deal activity during Q4 2020, when compared with the last four-quarter average, according to GlobalData’s deals database.
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A total of 128 deals worth $22.98bn were announced in Q4 2020, compared to the last four-quarter average of 109 deals.
M&A was the leading category in the quarter with 79 deals which accounted for 61.7% of all deals.
In second place was venture financing with 29 deals, followed by private equity with 20 transactions, respectively accounting for 22.7% and 15.6% of overall deal activity in the country’s financial services industry during the quarter.

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By GlobalDataIn terms of value of deals, M&A was the leading deal category in the UK financial services industry with total deals worth $19.18bn, while private equity and venture financing deals totalled $3.51bn and $286.65m, respectively.
The UK financial services industry deals in Q4 2020: Top deals
The top five financial services deals accounted for 89.8% of the overall value during Q4 2020.
The combined value of the top five financial services deals stood at $20.64bn, against the overall value of $22.98bn recorded for the quarter.
The top five financial services industry deals of Q4 2020 tracked by GlobalData were:
1) Intact Financial and Tryg’s $9.27bn acquisition of RSA Insurance Group
2) The $9bn merger of Foley Trasimene AcquisitionII and Paysafe Group
3) Waterfall EIT’s $825.25m private equity deal with Pollen Street Securities Lending
4) The $800m private equity deal with Inigo by Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, Enstar Group, Inigo – Management Team, J.C. FlowersLLC, Oak Hill Advisors, Qatar Investment Authority and Stone Point Capital
5) CVC Strategic Opportunities II’s private equity deal with RiverStone Europe for $750m.
Verdict deals analysis methodology
This analysis considers only announced and completed deals from the GlobalData financial deals database and excludes all terminated and rumoured deals. Country and industry are defined according to the headquarters and dominant industry of the target firm. The term ‘acquisition’ refers to both completed deals and those in the bidding stage.
GlobalData tracks real-time data concerning all merger and acquisition, private equity/venture capital and asset transaction activity around the world from thousands of company websites and other reliable sources.
More in-depth reports and analysis on all reported deals are available for subscribers to GlobalData’s deals database.