Restructuring, acquisition and growth are firmly back on the agenda across the financial services sector.
Focus on restructuring: The drivers shaping the financial services sector, a study carried out as part of the PwC FS Briefing programme, found that more than 90% of financial services executives believed that restructuring would be ‘important, very important or integral’ in helping them to meet their goals.
However, transactions need to be carefully targeted and justified at a time when winning investor backing for large scale ‘visionary’ acquisitions continues to prove difficult. Many companies are therefore looking at how acquisition, restructuring and, where appropriate, divestment could help them to focus more closely on their primary sources of value, be this particular territories, products or service offerings. No doubt size will still be important, not least as a means of deterring potential predators. Yet, outsourcing, off-shoring and joint ventures could prove as critical as acquisition in shaping this market.
Securing the vital investor support is likely to require exacting valuation, due diligence and communication, especially as the move to
International Financial Reporting Standards will make it easier for the market to judge the success or failure of the takeover. Competition for suitable targets is also proving more intense and the structuring of deals ever more complex, especially at a time when private equity investors are taking ever greater interest in the financial services sector.
How PwC can help you
PricewaterhouseCoopers has a local and a global network of specialists who can help vendors and acquirers to maximise the returns on deals and reduce the risks. Services include due diligence, merger benefit analysis, finance, transaction and post-integration support.
