Global Transportation and Logistics deals insights year-end 2017

Deal volume and value surged in 2017

The global Transportation and Logistics (T&L) sector reported 284 deals in 2017, an increase of 18% compared with 2016. Deal value increased by 5% to $125.5 billion during the year. However, average deal size decreased by 11% in 2017, due to higher growth in volume.

_{Source: Thomson Reuters and other publicly available sources}

“Global T&L deal activity was robust with deal volumes increasing 18% in 2017. In Canada, freight volumes are surging due to the strength of the Canadian economy and growth of international trade. We expect that 2018 will be another strong year for M&A, driven by high freight volumes and continued supply chain disruption resulting from e-commerce.”

- Eric Castonguay,
National Corporate Finance Leader

2017 trends and highlights

While H2 2017 recorded a decrease of 1% in deal volume, deal value in the T&L sector increased 53% compared with H1 2017.

Megadeals were less of an impact on overall Sector metrics as transactions with announced value greater than $5 billion made up 21% of deal value in 2017, compared with 33% in 2016.

Consistent with 2016, Asia & Oceania was the single largest regional contributor to over Sector activity in terms of both deal volume and value.

Passenger Ground was the largest contributor to deal value in 2017, with the value of deals in that sub-sector almost doubling from 2016. With 78 announced transactions, the Shipping sub-sector accounted for the largest number of deals in the Sector, an increase of 44% over 2016.

Strategic investors continued to account for the majority of deal activity in the Sector but financial buyer activity increased to account for 48% of volume, up from 45% in 2016.