EY North teams advise on deals worth more than £2.2bn in 2025

• EY teams in the North of England advised on 14 deals worth a total of more than £2.2bn in 2025
• The deals involved a variety of different sectors including business services, technology, industrials, infrastructure and healthcare

EY teams in the North of England, based across the firm’s Manchester and Leeds offices, acted on 14 transactions worth more than £2.2bn in 2025.

A number of deals completed in the second half of the year worth a combined total of more than £1.2bn.

EY in the North provided a range of advisory services to clinical trials company, Panthera Biopartners, as part of their sale to private equity house, LDC, with re-investment from private equity firm, BGF.

As part of a significant transport and infrastructure transaction, EY advised international airport operator, Aena, as it invested in both Leeds Bradford and Newcastle International airports. The deal, worth £270m, saw Aena purchase a 51% shareholding in a newly-formed holding company which owns 100% of Leeds Bradford Airport and 49% of Newcastle International Airport.

With the technology deals market continuing to see regular activity, EY supported private equity house, Partech on its investment in IMP Software.

Mark Clephan, UK M&A Leader and North M&A Partner at EY Parthenon, said: “We were delighted to support a number of clients across a wide range of sectors and industries in 2025 as they leveraged the deals market to explore and maximise strategic opportunities. The UK has seen relatively subdued economic growth in the last few years and the cost of borrowing remained high relative to historical norms in 2025. Against this backdrop it’s encouraging to see that clients took these headwinds and challenges in their stride and continued to complete important transactions. The most successful businesses continue to be highly sought after.

“There is a strong pipeline of deals activity for 2026, and we are looking forward with optimism as our teams across the North continue to provide a comprehensive range of transactions services to clients. In keeping with last year’s trends, we expect to see further activity in the technology, healthcare and business services sectors in 2026.”

EY North teams supported 10 deals during the first half of 2025

EY in the North advised technology company, Telent on its sale to infrastructure services provider M Group.

In another technology deal, EY also provided financial, taxation and technology vendor due diligence for software company, Continia on its investment from private equity firm, VIA Equity.

Within the business services sector, EY provided a host of services on the sale of IMS Euro Group to private equity firm, Elysian Capital. IMS Euro, a fast-growing non-pharmaceutical medical consumables business, was advised by EY’s M&A, debt, strategy and tax teams on the transaction.

EY’s M&A team led the sale of Adare SEC, a specialist printing business, to Mail Metrics Limited.

EY’s Financial Diligence team supported home delivery and warehousing company, ArrowXL on its sale to transport and logistics business, Jacky Perrenot.

EY supported agriculture manufacturing company Carr’s Group PLC on the sale of its engineering division to safety products provider, Cadre Holdings.

There was further deals activity in the industrials sector, as EY provided buyside financial and taxation due diligence to personal protection manufacturer and provider of sustainable safety solutions, Globus Group, on its acquisition of Global Glove & Safety Manufacturing Inc.

EY provided financial and taxation vendor due diligence for GEV Wind Power which was bought by sector-focused investor, Certek.

EY in the North also provided sell-side advice to FES International – a provider of fluid transfer solutions to the offshore oil, gas and renewables industries – on their sale to precision engineering group Hunting PLC.