Deal value has rebounded, but deal count has not

What counts as mid-market

How big is the market, and why do the counts disagree?

No two sources agree on size, because each counts something different. For UK deals in 2025, ONS records 1,889 completed control deals of £1m or more, Dealogic 4,331 and Experian 6,742, the last from £500,000 upward and including funding rounds²³¹¹. For Canada, Dealogic shows 1,794, a Canadian corporate finance adviser's quarterly reports 2,560 and S&P 3,184¹¹¹³¹⁵. We use ONS for UK trends because it is accredited official statistics. We use that adviser for Canada because we found no current Statistics Canada M&A series.

The direction is the same across sources. UK domestic deals fell 37% from 2021 to 757 in 2025, and were 272 in the first half of 2026 against 424 a year earlier, on provisional figures that tend to revise up¹². PwC, using LSEG data, shows UK value up 125% to £134.7bn in the first half of 2026 while volume fell 12.6% to 1,302, with ten deals making up 65% of value (our sum)⁸. UK value is more volatile than count. ONS completed value rose 78% to £103.8bn in 2025, still 32% below 2021, while Experian's announced value fell 46% to £161.1bn²³. The ONS notes a long gap between announcing and completing, which fits that mismatch. Experian's count exceeded 11,000 in 2018 and 2019³. Canada shows the same split. In Q2 2026 that adviser counted 600 deals, the lowest since Q4 2023, and value from deals below $1B fell to $14.7B from $21.5B two quarters earlier¹⁴.

Belgium has no count we could verify. Of 158 specialists surveyed by Vlerick, 46% saw more deals in 2025 and 26% fewer¹⁸¹⁹. Growth sat below €20m, while nearly half of those active at €20m to €50m reported a decline, after 60% did so for 2024¹⁸²⁰. European private equity data shows the same squeeze: from 2021 to 2025, buyouts with under €15m of equity rose 29% by number of companies, while those with €15m to €50m fell 11%²⁶.

Where do deals sit by size?

In each market, small deals are most of the count and little of the value. UK deals under £100m were 88% of disclosed deals and about 13% of value³. In Q4 2025, 80% of Canadian disclosed deals were under $250m, carrying 8% of value, and 55% of all deals disclosed no value at all¹³. Of Canadian private equity deals, 93% were below C$100M¹⁶. Inside the advised mid-market, one in four European deals exceeded €10m in the first half of 2026²². In UK&I, deals of £10m or more fell from 25% to 15% of the mix in late 2025, and Dealsuite reported larger deals regaining share in 2026²³²⁴.

Who is buying?

Foreign buyers are the first shift. They completed 807 UK acquisitions in 2025 against 757 by UK buyers, the only year this has happened since at least 1986, allowing for a coverage break in 2018². Their share of UK-target deals was 52%. Canada was about 27% (our calculation from the Canadian adviser's 301 US deals at 69% of foreign buyers and 1,641 targets), and about one in three Belgian deals involved a foreign buyer¹³¹⁹. These measures are not like for like.

The domestic fall is not about owner-managed sales. Of the 441 fewer UK domestic deals since 2021, 418 were subsidiary sales between groups².

Private equity's share depends on what is counted. Experian put 26% of UK deals in 2023 as private equity funded, including venture and growth⁵. Buy-outs alone were 207 of 4,719 deals in the first nine months of 2025, about 4% (our calculation)⁶. Canada recorded 592 private equity deals in 2025, equal to 23% of the Canadian adviser's count on a different definition¹³¹⁶. In UK public markets nearly half of the 60 firm offers in 2025-26 came from private equity and similar investors³¹. European buyouts reached 1,629 companies in 2025, the highest since at least 2011²⁶. Buyout value rose 21% in France and Benelux and fell 21% in UK and Ireland²⁷. In Belgium, financial buyers paid 7.3 times EBITDA against 6.2 for strategic buyers, and 70% of private equity deals were seller-initiated¹⁸¹⁹.

Is the work sell-side or buy-side?

We could not verify a market-wide split, so we give none. The indirect evidence points to a seller-constrained market. Age and succession drove 41% of UK&I sales, and retirement ranks first in Belgium¹⁸²³. UK&I companies for sale drew 8.5 serious buyers on average in the first half of 2026, up from 7.9²⁴. PwC describes "more capital chasing fewer deals" in the UK⁸.

How long does a deal take?

Six to twelve months from mandate to close is typical. In UK&I, half of sale processes took 6 to 12 months and 80% took under 12²³. In Belgium, 62% of respondents said the average process ran past 180 days in 2024, down from 72% in 2023 but above 53% in 2021²⁰. In Pepperdine's survey, 52% reported nine months or more³². Public deals are measured differently: the median from announcement to completion was 89 days across 2009 to 2025²⁹. Advisers still report delays: 58% of Firmex respondents said negotiations ran longer than usual in early 2025, and Experian noted longer gaps before completion in Q1 2026⁷³³.

How often do deals fail?

It depends where you start counting. After announcement, failure averaged 3.7% for private targets and 11.1% for public targets worldwide, with UK targets at 4.9% and Canadian targets at 6.3%²⁸. Later data agrees for public deals: 87% of bids completed across 2009 to 2025²⁹. UK offers lapsed or withdrawn rose from 5 of 58 in 2023-24 to 9 of 61 in 2025-26 (our calculation)³⁰³¹.

Before announcement there is no official data. Pepperdine reports 34% of engagements not transacting (median 32%)³². Dealsuite, a deal platform for advisers, gives a European measure of one cause: sellers' expectations were too high in 50% of processes, and that gap ended 29% of those, or about 14.5% of all processes (our calculation). For UK&I the figures are 49% and 24%, or about 12%²²²⁴. In Belgium, 59% of respondents said first offers came in at least 10% below seller expectations²⁰.

Who wins the work?

Boutiques earned US$17.0bn of US$41.4bn in global M&A revenue in 2025, or 41%, against 35% for the five largest banks (our calculation)¹¹. Refinitiv put boutiques at 35% globally, 46% in Europe and 31% in the Americas in the five years to May 2019, with 2,280 firms sharing the fees³⁴. The definitions differ, so read this as about two-fifths, not a measured rise.

The fee pool is uneven by country. In the UK the top ten took 56% of US$3.27bn. In Canada six domestic bank-owned dealers took 37% of US$1.83bn, and only one independent made the top ten (our calculations)¹¹.

By count the picture changes. Goldman Sachs advised on 1.3% of the deals Dealogic logged and 31.8% of value¹¹. In Experian's 2025 UK table by count, 15 of the top 20 were accounting-led firms on our classification and no global bank appeared, though Goldman Sachs ranked 16th in 2024³⁴. An accounting network's Belgian firm tied for first in Belgium's Q2 2026 table²¹. These tables credit due diligence as well as lead advice.

What does this mean for an independent firm?

• Plan on count, not value. Headline value says little about pipeline when 83% of Canadian value sits in deals of $1bn or more.
• Build buyer reach across borders. A UK sale process that stops at UK buyers now misses the group completing most UK acquisitions.
• Treat owner-managed sales as the steady core. The UK independent-company count has held and succession is the leading sale motive in UK&I and Belgium.
• Test price before taking the mandate. Most lost work happens before announcement, and each failed process can absorb six months or more.
• Know the real competitor. The firms most often on UK deals by count are accounting networks. Global banks take the fees at the top of the market.
• Watch the €20m to €50m band. It is the soft spot in both Belgian survey data and European buyout data.