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Simon Wood welcomes AG sector leaders Hardeep Plahe and Elvan Hussein to Mergerspresso. In this episode, they explore the M&A themes shaping both financial services…
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Simon Wood welcomes AG sector leaders Hardeep Plahe and Elvan
Hussein to Mergerspresso. In this episode, they explore the M&A
themes shaping both financial services and technology deals … all
in the time it takes to make your coffee.
If you’d like a deeper dive, take a look at
AG’s 2026 M&A Outlook, which brings together the
insights shaping the next wave of M&A activity.
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Transcript
Simon Wood
Hello and welcome to Mergerspresso. I’m Simon Wood. In this
episode, we’ll be considering M&A themes in common to
financial services and technology in the time that it takes to make
your coffee. I’m joined by AG’s sector leaders, Hardeep
Plahe and Elvin Hussein. Hardeep, for FS firms now, what’s more
important, transformative M&A or building scale?
Hardeep Plahe
It’s both, but scale is really important. There’s been a
wave of consolidation in banks, wealth managers, insurers to merge,
to compete with the bigger players and to build resilience.
We’ve seen that just last year. We acted for Coventry Building
Society when they bought Co-op Bank, making it the sort of quite
clearly the second biggest building society in the UK. That theme
is also driving significant volume in M&A activity, especially
in wealth management, where I read the other day that half of all
M&A deals globally are for portfolio management businesses.
Simon Wood
And El, focusing on the scale bit for now, is consolidation as
important for typically younger, more dynamic tech businesses?
Elvan Hussein
It is, but in a very different way. So one notable feature of
recent tech M&A deals is to integrate and embed defensive
capabilities into systems. Cyber security businesses are the
exemplar targets here. So the key focus is really on establishing
digital trust at scale. Businesses that can ultimately demonstrate
measurable resilience command premium valuations in this
market.
Simon Wood
Thank you. And then going back to the other bit of the question
about transformative M&A.
Hardeep Plahe
Well, AI and financial tech solutions are clearly the priority,
particularly as financial services firms look to make that sort of
digital leap. What are they doing? They’re acquiring fintech
companies and by doing that, they’re enhancing their tech
capabilities and staying competitive, particularly as against new
challenges. The most attractive acquisition targets tend to be
those that are using AI across their operations and delivering
measurable outcomes. Of course, the flip side of that is that
there’s a rising expectation for governance, deployment
concerns, but of course, eventually, that will all one hopes lead
to profitability.
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