Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A)

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A)
Capability Overview

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A)

Let's partner to secure investments, enhance returns, and turn risk into opportunity.

Understanding Today's Challenges and Opportunities

Following an intense period of record mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity, dealmakers still maintain a healthy pipeline with cash holdings at unprecedented levels. They are, however, faced with significant headwinds and material risks including, among others, geopolitical uncertainty driving inflation and interest rises, the acceleration of the digital economy, a constantly changing tax landscape, sophisticated cyber threats, heightened scrutiny of environmental, social and governance programs and a challenging talent market that puts pressure on people programs and integration.

These forces make mergers and acquisitions and other capital market transactions complex, time-critical and highly specialized. To optimize your return on investment, it is imperative to secure risks across multiple business disciplines and functions, and in a tightening environment, rethink your approach to unlocking capital and managing risks identified in the deal process.

To unlock added value in today's environment, business and transaction leaders should understand and embrace the following trends:

Deal Making Trends to Watch

  • 01

    Increased Investment in Technology

    An expanding digital economy presents risks and opportunities for dealmakers. By analyzing key deal performance indicators on digital platforms, added value can be captured thorough an enhanced understanding of intellectual property, cyber vulnerabilities and digital risk mitigation strategies.

  • 02

    Enhanced Use of Insurance Capital

    In uncertain environments, balancing risk and opportunity is critical for driving returns. Dealmakers will look for more creative ways to manage capital across deal and balance sheet risks, turning to insurance capital to facilitate M&A transactions and improve deal and business outcomes.

  • 03

    Deeper and Broader Due Diligence

    From having the right tools in place to negotiate a strong deal to paving the way for a smooth integration to creating new platforms for future growth, buyers must undertake thorough due diligence across an evolving array of risks to drive success.

  • 04

    The Rise of the ESG Agenda

    From climate change risk to social issues, ESG considerations will play a role across M&A transactions. In due diligence processes, buyers will increasingly scrutinize targets’ ESG credentials, homing in on reputational risks as well as regulatory concerns.

What Should Leaders Focus On Throughout the Deal Lifecycle?

  • Identify, Target and Buy

    Create a foundation for success by identifying a target that fits your business and growth goals, with an upfront understanding of the opportunities and risks that could impact outcomes.

  • Integrate

    Build momentum toward long-term deal success by establishing strong connections between your business and transaction objectives and your risk and human capital integration plans.

  • Separate and Sell

    Capture and maximize value by managing ongoing risks, reinforcing positive attributes in the areas of cyber, digital, and IP, and negotiating from a position of knowledge.

How Aon Can Help

Who We Serve

We partner with organizations across the full spectrum of mergers and acquisitions and other capital market transactions, including:

  • Corporations – We help corporations achieve their goals, drive capital efficiencies and optimize balance sheets by solving wide-ranging deal and financial risks through specialized due diligence, M&A and financial risk insurance and human capital, digital, cyber and intellectual property offerings.
  • Financial Sponsors – We help secure investments, maximize deal value and drive success by solving wide-ranging issues facing financial sponsors throughout the deal lifecycle and across their portfolio companies. We provide clients the unique ability to manage deals effectively and efficiently with a single contact and source of execution.
  • M&A Advisors – As a trusted advisor, clients rely on you to help navigate today’s complex deal and business environment to improve outcomes. We bring a deeply experienced cross-disciplinary team, including legal, M&A, tax, cyber, intellectual property, human capital and ESG resources to become an extension of your team and help solve wide-ranging issues.

Specialized Transaction Support

From carve-outs to spinoffs and distressed assets, we have experience supporting clients with particularly complex transactions, including:

  • Carve-outs and Spinoffs – Our carve-out team delivers globally coordinated and multi-disciplinary solutions to help sellers and buyers reduce the likelihood of delays and execution problems that can drive up costs and diminish value. We help clients unlock value with thoughtful preparation and with effective use of existing structured instruments.
  • Distressed Transactions – In these cases, it is critical to optimize your return on investment by securing risks across multiple business disciplines and functions and rethinking approaches to unlocking capital. We help clients secure investments, maximize deal value and drive transaction success by solving wide-ranging issues facing dealmakers throughout the deal life cycle.
  • Secondary Funds – Secondary transactions come with risks that may erode long-term returns. Our dedicated global secondary transactions team brings multi-national coordination with local experience that enables financial sponsors and their investors to allocate risk to bespoke insurance markets and help secure their private equity investments.

Targeted M&A and Transaction Support

In addition to supporting business and transaction leaders with overall deal strategy, we provide clients with a wide range of highly targeted products and services, including:

  • Cyber Transaction Advisory Services
  • Intellectual Property Transaction Advisory Services
  • Litigation Risk Insurance
  • Human Capital Transaction Advisory Services
  • Representations and Warranties, and Warranty and Indemnity Insurance
  • Special Deal Due Diligence
  • Tax Risk Management

Let’s Connect

Talk to Our Team

Contact our team today to learn more about how we can help your business.