After an eventful first half, our Nordic team offers three key datapoints that summarise the first six months of activity:

1. Nordic M&A saw a 57% value increase in the first half of 2016 compared to the same period last year, pushed up by two megadeals: Mylan’s €8.8bn takeover of Swedish pharma company Meda - the largest Nordic M&A deal since Takeda’s €9.6bn acquisition of Nycomed in 2011.
2. Total deal value amounted to €36.4bn in the first six months of 2016, compared to €23.2bn between January and June last year. Regional deal count was stable at 454 deals, according to Mergermarket data. 
3. Nordic private equity saw 93 buyouts worth €2.9bn in 1H16– a 109.6% increase in value compared to the same period last year, Mergermarket reported. On the exit side, 66 deals amounted to €3.9bn, up from €2.9bn and 93 deals in 1H15.

And on the macro outlook for the second half...

As M&A relies on investors’ confidence, the uncertainty surrounding Brexit and the pending US election could create slight obstacles for Nordic dealmaking. “Despite these macro factors delaying some exits, the Nordics are fairly unaffected by Brexit and the underlying market is very solid,” Morten Revsbech, head of Nordics at Nordea, said.

“An asset with operations only in the Nordics is unlikely to be affected by such factors,” Salvatore Santoro, head of Investment Banking Sweden at DNB, added.

This article is an excerpt of Mergermarket's Nordic M&A Trend Report H1 2016.

Christel Thunell ‎Financial Journalist/Head of Nordic Coverage Mergermarket

Christel heads up the Nordic coverage for Mergermarket from the London office. Before joining Mergermarket in 2011, she worked as a news reporter on her home turf southern Sweden, covering everything from cow bingo to the construction of multi-billion euro particle accelerators. At Mergermarket, an ideal day involves scooping Nasdaq Stockholm IPOs. Christel holds a M.Sc. in Biology and is partial to the life science and technology sectors.