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DAZN closes £1.7bn deal Down Under (Stage)

03 Apr 2025 Apr 03, 2025

UK 6 min read

Author

Hello,

After all the build up, Trump’s tariffs have finally been unveiled. UK exporters will have to shoulder a 10% tariff, however we got off relatively lightly compared to our European neighbours.

What it all means for M&A remains to be seen, however the slump in deal activity in Q1 indicates that businesses and sponsors will continue to keep their powder dry for the short-term at least.

You can read my colleague Sabine Schilg’s thoughts on how tariffs will impact automotive M&A in this article from Yahoo Finance.

And in other news this week:

Thames Water picked KKR as its preferred bidder
DAZN completed its $2.1bn deal for Australia’s Foxtel Group
Irish power producer Energia is up for sale for £1.7bn

Thanks for reading, and connect with me on LinkedIn if you want to discuss how I can help with your next M&A deal.

Deal Tracker

Our weekly roundup of all the confirmed M&A deals in the UK.

Transaction	Sectors	Buyer
01 Unilever bought upmarket refillable personal care brand Wild for up to £230m	Consumer	Unilever
02 Shell acquired Pavilion Energy	Energy	Shell
03 RPC bought 1.9-GW renewables portfolio in Sweden and Finland from Norway’s Njordr AS	Energy	RPC
04 Octopus Energy acquired a 10% stake in the 714-MW East Anglia One wind farm	Energy	Octopus Energy
05 DAZN acquired Foxtel for £1.6bn	Entertainment	DAZN
06 Shaftesbury Capital sold Covent Garden stake to Norges Bank	Financial services	Norges Bank
07 Impax Asset Management Group acquired Sky Harbor	Financial services	Impax Asset Management Group
08 UBP acquired SG Kleinwort Hambros from Societe Generale	Financial services	UBP
09 Brunel Insurance acquired the renewal rights to John Walker Insurance	Insurance	Brunel Insurance
10 Brown and Brown acquired BCM Acquisitions	Insurance	Brown and Brown
11 Mondi acquired Schumacher Packaging assets for £532.7m	Manufacturing	Mondi
12 NCC Group acquired Fox Crypto for £66m	TMT	NCC Group
13 Experian completes £266m ClearSale acquisition	TMT	Experian
14 Actis-led consortium acquired Swiftnet, South African tower platform, for approx. £280m	TMT	Actis

The rumour mill

Salaries and bonuses

Job moves

Market trends

Cyber threats fuel deal appetite

It seems Google’s $32bn deal for Wiz could be part of a bigger trend for increasing cybersecurity M&A. Mergermarket reports that geopolitical tensions and shifting defence strategies are steering more capital into European cybersecurity, with the sector recording 172 deals in 2024, totalling £10.6bn – more than three times the previous year’s value.

Early 2025 activity is slower, but notable transactions, such as Tines Security Services’ £95m funding round, indicate sustained investor interest. Private equity and corporate buyers also remain engaged, as seen in Thoma Bravo’s £3.7bn Darktrace acquisition and Accenture’s purchase of Spain’s Innotec Security.

M&A in Europe and US lags behind APAC

In what has been a slow start to 2025, we receive the good news that dealmaking in APAC has increased 19% year-on-year. This just outpaces the US growth rate of 13%, while Europe saw a 14% drop, according to Bloomberg.

“Companies and financial sponsors across Asia are more actively pursuing M&A than we’ve seen in the past three years,” said Raghav Maliah, global vice chairman of investment banking at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

The growth in M&A in APAC and the US tallies with data shared by Goldman in its 2025 M&A Outlook at the start of the year, which showed sponsor buy-side activity ticked upwards in 2024 after hitting a low point in 2023.