Advisory

“In today’s rapidly changing world, businesses are prioritising resilience, reinvention, and readiness for the future. This year, we’ve seen our clients contend with geopolitical tensions, inflationary pressures, and shifting trade dynamics, while seizing transformative opportunities in artificial intelligence, sustainability, and business model innovation. More leaders are adopting Business Model Reinvention as a strategic approach to future-proof their organisations. Across our Advisory practice - encompassing deals, consulting, risk and regulation, and digital services - we’ve collaborated with organisations to unlock value, build trust, and achieve lasting outcomes. Our commitment remains clear: to help organisations not only respond to change, but shape it.”

Ryan Sciberras, Head of Advisory

Deals

Our deals team is dedicated to helping clients unlock value through strategic transactions, including mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, and restructurings. Over the past year, global transaction activity started cautiously but gained momentum, with deal values rising even as volumes remained subdued. Strategic and cross-border transactions accelerated in the second half, fuelled by renewed investor confidence, though deal volumes remain well below the levels seen a few years ago. Despite this, we stayed active in local market transactions, including several carried over from the previous financial year. Our transaction services team also contributed to global engagements in collaboration with PwC offices in Australia, Denmark, Luxembourg, and Saudi Arabia. These cross-border assignments provide our people with valuable exposure to diverse deal environments and enable them to broaden their experience across a range of transaction types.

Given evolving market dynamics and challenges faced by many local businesses, we anticipate continued consolidation in the years ahead. To support this, we have a dedicated M&A team focused on helping potential sellers prepare their businesses for sale and identify suitable buyers. We also assist buyers in sourcing targets that align with their strategic objectives. A key part of our role involves advising both buyers and sellers on valuation expectations and pricing dynamics, ensuring informed decision-making. Our experienced team guides clients through every stage of the transaction process, from preparing documentation and marketing materials to managing negotiations and execution, ensuring a smooth and efficient outcome.

This year, the local capital market has gained significant momentum, with increased investor appetite and a steady pipeline of issuers tapping into the market, particularly to raise debt. We have been actively engaged in supporting clients with capital raising initiatives, including several high-profile bond rollovers and refinancing exercises as well as assisting new issuers entering the market. Our team was involved in assisting two international issuers that identified the local capital market as an attractive avenue to raise debt. Our team has also advised on other capital market transactions such as spin-offs and other corporate transactions, helping clients navigate regulatory requirements and optimise deal structures. These engagements reflect our growing presence in the capital markets space and our commitment to delivering value across the full transaction lifecycle.

Our valuations team comprises highly skilled professionals with deep experience in valuing businesses, real estate, complex financial instruments, and intangible assets such as intellectual property and brand portfolios. Over the past year, we have delivered valuations across these categories for a variety of purposes, including transactions, financial reporting, shareholder restructuring, and transfer pricing assessments. We have also supported clients by preparing valuations to assist in court representations. In addition, our team continues to provide technical support to our Assurance practice and the wider PwC network, including fair value assessments, impairment testing, and going concern evaluations.

Over the past few years, our investment in upskilling has delivered tangible results. Our team is now proficient in a broad suite of advanced data tools and continues to benefit from the expertise of our wider data and analytics network. Building on this strong foundation, we have shifted our focus to developing capabilities in Artificial Intelligence, with targeted training and cross-territory collaboration. As part of this evolution, we have launched Junction, a data and AI-powered platform designed to enhance real-time client engagement and deliver insights more efficiently and effectively. Junction integrates deep sector knowledge with intuitive collaboration features, enabling our teams to create sustainable value across engagements.

Risk and Regulation

Our risk and regulation team is dedicated to assisting clients in navigating the increasingly complex landscape of risk and governance. We help clients strengthen their internal controls, spot and manage risks effectively, and improve governance practices. Our services include internal audits, the development of risk management frameworks, internal control health checks, business continuity management frameworks, and specialised forensic services.

Over the past year, we’ve partnered with a range of licensed financial institutions and non-regulated entities, providing full internal audit outsourcing, co-sourcing, and internal control advisory engagements. We also support numerous public sector entities in setting up fraud risk registers, delivering risk management training, and evaluating internal controls, among other services.

We’ve conducted several forensic engagements for various organisations, focusing on identifying and measuring irregularities and malpractices. Through these efforts, we highlight where internal controls need improvement. We’ve also worked with key partners to enhance their internal control environments, including a comprehensive internal controls review for a non-regulated entity covering IT, commercial, and HR processes. This involved providing recommendations and conducting a risk assessment of these processes and activities.

Management Consulting

In 2025, the landscape of management consulting is evolving rapidly, and we're at the forefront of this transformation. At PwC, we understand that businesses today face unprecedented challenges and opportunities. Our approach is simple yet powerful: we work closely with clients to navigate these complexities, ensuring their strategies are not only effective but also sustainable.

Our team of experienced professionals is dedicated to delivering results that matter. We combine deep industry knowledge with innovative thinking to help our clients reimagine their business model, adapt swiftly to market changes, and unlock new revenue streams. Whether it's through digital transformation, risk management, or operational efficiency, we're here to support their journey.

Strategy, data and research

In the past year, we’ve embarked on a variety of projects across both the public and private sectors, offering strategic insight to clients by enhancing data collection and visualisation. By merging our research skills with expertise from across our firm, we bring added value to our clients. As a corporate member of ESOMAR, we commit to the highest professional standards and practices that drive effective decision-making.

Our efforts have bolstered strategic decision making, including viability and feasibility assessments, which are crucial in due diligence before mergers or acquisitions. We’ve also conducted market quantification studies across industries like FMCG, real estate, renewable energy, and technology. Our primary research on behalf of our clients, includes online digital surveys, mystery shopping, in-depth interviews, and focus groups.

We’ve collaborated with our clients to develop tailored dashboards for data visualisation, crafted by our team on platforms that best suit our clients’ needs. These tools enable our clients to interact with data, uncover trends, explore insights, and consolidate information from various sources in one place.

EU Advisory, policy and research

In FY25, we’ve continued to empower businesses to tap into EU funding, helping them embark on eligible investment projects. We’ve guided them through the application process and crafted the necessary business plans for various schemes. This includes EU-funded grants like the Digitalise your Business, Start-Up Enhance, SME Enhance (GBER), and the Retrofit scheme. We’ve also broadened our reach beyond local EU-funded schemes, assisting potential partners in accessing direct EU funding opportunities managed by the European Commission, such as those under the CEF programme.

Moreover, we’ve supported several public sector entities and voluntary organisations in applying for EU funding to back their projects. We’ve also assisted them with the carrying out a cost-benefit analysis for their investment projects.

Workforce

In Workforce consulting, we continue to empower our clients to achieve their strategic goals by focusing on their people. A significant area of our support is the transformation of their HR functions to ensure that their operating models, including the use of technology, is effective in supporting their organisation. Digital transformation is a key success driver, but it hinges on employee adoption and engagement. That’s why we assist our clients in developing and implementing change management strategies that align with technology rollouts.

Employee insights are becoming increasingly valueable, enabling organisations to craft action plans and base their decision-making on real-time data. This year, we’ve conducted employee engagement surveys across diverse organisations, from a major EU agency to local businesses.

Upskilling and leadership development remain at the forefront of our client’s priorities. We continued to support them in developing competency frameworks, conducting skills assessments, and create and implement leadership development programmes.

Programme and project management

Successfully delivering programmes and projects is crucial for the transformative initiatives our clients are undertaking. This year, we have partnered with numerous clients, offering project management expertise that supports the seamless execution of several projects and programmes, such as funding programmes and broader transformative strategies. Our collaboration involves developing robust governance frameworks and developing essential tools like dashboards to track milestones, manage risks, and oversee budgets.

Additionally, we have guided clients through the process of issuing Requests for Proposals. Leveraging our extensive experience, we provide strategic advice and assist with drafting tender document, strategic guidance, setting up RfPs, collation of information, identification of target suppliers/buyers, managing the communication activities, monitoring the RfP process and supporting in the evaluation of proposals, alongside technical experts, to deliver insightful outcomes.

Our commitment extends to supporting private sector clients in crafting their responses to Requests for Proposals. We provide comprehensive project management, coordinating our clients’ team inputs to ensure responses are timely and meet high-quality standards, empowering our clients to excel in competitive scenarios.

Sustainability

Over the past year we’ve faced uncertainty, various macroeconomic shifts and significant regulatory changes in the sustainable reporting landscape. Yet, the topic of sustainability remains a top priority for all stakeholders, especially investors, as ESG risks become clearer and the call for action grows louder.

At PwC, this past year, we’ve focused on showing how sustainability can guide strategic choices and make practical business sense. Reporting is part of this, but our main goal has been to unlock business value by boosting collaboration, transparency, and resilience within organisations.

We’ve assembled a multidisciplinary team to assist clients in ESG readiness. By combining our technical knowledge of the subject matter, with expertise in reporting standards and the respective regulatory needs, we deliver practical solutions. To us, this has meant everything from developing tailored metrics and building internal controls to enable robust reporting, to carrying out readiness assessments, gap assessments, and detailed GHG support for decarbonisation roadmaps.

As the demand for better data and more trusted solutions grows, so does the need for sustainability assurance. As a result, we have been leveraging our traditional assurance strengths to provide rigorous sustainability assurance to multiple clients, particularly related to GHG emissions.

In this ever-changing landscape, we’re dedicated to supporting organisations manage new regulations and practical challenges of implementation, while staying true to our purpose: turning sustainability obligations into business advantage.

Real estate services

Our Real Estate team continues to support clients across the full lifecycle of property-related transactions, providing strategic advice and execution support in a dynamic and evolving market. Over the past year, we’ve been engaged in assisting clients with the divestiture of high-value non-core assets. These engagements have involved both local and international investors, reflecting growing cross-border interest in Malta’s real estate sector. Our role has centred on providing clients with tailored advice around asset positioning, market timing, and buyer targeting, supported by robust financial analysis and market intelligence. In addition to transactional support, our team has assisted clients with feasibility studies and market research, providing clients with the insights needed to make informed investment and development decisions. These studies have spanned residential, hospitality, commercial, and logistics sectors, and have been tailored to address specific client objectives - whether assessing the viability of new developments, evaluating repositioning strategies for underperforming assets, or supporting financing and planning applications. Our approach combines rigorous financial modelling with in-depth market analysis, including demand-supply assessments, competitor benchmarking, and scenario testing. Increasingly, our clients are seeking guidance on how to align their projects with evolving market trends, changing consumer preferences, and supply dynamics.

In 2025, PwC Digital Services were commissioned by the Property Malta Foundation to develop an online platform that enables access to property contractual transactions in Malta. This initiative marks a significant step forward in improving transparency and accessibility in a market where robust data has traditionally been limited. We are proud to be part of this project, which will empower stakeholders with better information and support more informed decision-making across the real estate ecosystem. Our research capabilities continue to be a key differentiator, enabling clients to navigate complexity with confidence and unlock long-term value through data-driven, strategic real estate decisions.

Digital Services

As PwC Digital Services, we are committed to leading these changes, leveraging our extensive expertise and strategic global partnerships to deliver cutting-edge solutions tailored to our clients' needs. Over the past year, our local practice has continued to solidify its position as a leader in the marketplace. We have expanded our capabilities across business transformation, data and AI, cybersecurity, and cloud infrastructure, driving forward our vision of harnessing technology for meaningful business outcomes.

Our focus on excellence and innovation is unwavering, offering our clients the tools and strategies necessary to navigate the complexities of today's digital age and achieve their strategic goals. The Intelligent Digital Conference, which was held for yet another year, stands as a testament to our dedication, showcasing how leveraging technology can drive business outcomes, particularly in the realms of cyber security and data management.

A key contributor to our success is our strong global alliances with industry leaders like Microsoft, Oracle, and HPE. These partnerships enable us to harness the power of advanced cloud products and technologies, creating sustainable change and growth for our clients. By collaborating with these alliance partners, we offer bespoke solutions that not only drive business growth but also enhance operational efficiency.