The European M&A market in the Transport & Logistics sector continues to be driven by M&A activity and consolidation across all market segments. Several serial acquirers continue to drive consolidation in the UK, DACH, France, the Nordics, and Benelux regions.

Logistics services segment is being targeted at a fast pace
The Transport & Logistics deal landscape in Europe has reached 1,367 recorded transactions during the period 2016 – H1 2022. Deal activity is mainly driven by a high number of acquisitions in the road transport (24.3%) and a fast-growing number of transactions in the freight forwarding (22.4%), and contract logistics (14.6%) sub-segments.

Increasing number of financial buyers are driving M&A activity
Private Equity investors have been involved in 21% of all transactions in H1 2022 which is significantly higher than the 9.5% in H1 2021. The rising interest of financial buyers in this sector is due to fragmentation of the market as well as a valuation gap that is present between large and small T&L-companies.

More cross-border acquisitions were observed
Deal activity in the Transport & Logistics sector is also driven by more cross-border acquisitions, especially in the Benelux. Both, European buyers as well as non- European buyers from the US, Canada, Middle East, and Africa have been driving this trend.