
Business owners planning to sell within 18 months face a tax trap. Rubric Law’s James Howell warns that even short delays could expose sellers to higher Capital Gains Tax when the Business Asset Disposal Relief rate rises in April 2026.

YFM Equity Partners has completed its exit from SharpCloud. The UK investor backed the data visualisation company in 2019, supporting its growth into a leading enterprise SaaS platform. SharpCloud has since been acquired by global decision software group Lumivero, marking a strong outcome for investors and stakeholders.

Diginex completes acquisition of The Remedy Project Limited. The acquisition aligns with growing demands for human rights due diligence driven by stringent regulations. It enhances Diginex’s capabilities in human rights risk identification and remediation within global supply chains.

December’s US M&A docket favoured scale, infrastructure, and control decisively. Netflix’s $82.7bn Warner Bros. deal set the tone, while IBM paid up for Confluent’s data-streaming backbone. ServiceNow’s $7.75bn Armis move underscored platform-driven security consolidation. Private equity returned via Clearwater Analytics, and Alphabet’s Intersect purchase highlighted power as an AI constraint.

European M&A ended 2025 with disciplined, strategically focused December deals. Orange’s €4.25bn move for full control of MasOrange set the tone. Sanofi and Sweden’s Sobi paid for pipeline clarity, Harman bought German ADAS capability, and Prada’s Versace acquisition underlined that European luxury consolidation remains firmly alive.

December reshaped UK dealmaking, from energy divestments to takeovers worldwide. BP’s Castrol carve-out set the tone, while Smiths, Petrofac, SolGold, and International Personal Finance highlighted continued appetite for UK assets. The month revealed how capital is being deployed — selectively, strategically, and with little tolerance for ambiguity.

Lomond completes strategic sale with Womble Bond Dickinson. The transaction follows Lomond’s landmark acquisition of Kinleigh Folkard & Hayward earlier this year, underscoring the company’s expanding national property footprint and the continued legal partnership between Lomond and Womble Bond Dickinson.

Basware strengthens its AP automation reach through Redmap acquisition. The global invoice automation leader has acquired Australian AP software provider Redmap, expanding its reach across the fast-growing Asia-Pacific market as governments and businesses accelerate adoption of e-invoicing and compliance automation.

November’s US M&A tape did not look busy. It did, however, look big. A handful of multi-billion-dollar deals in consumer health, cancer diagnostics, industrials, and AI infrastructure underscored how 2025’s deal cycle is being driven by scale, category leadership, and infrastructure for an AI-intensive economy.

November’s M&A tape in Europe shrank, but deals swelled dramatically. From coatings and chemicals to energy and financial infrastructure, November’s largest transactions show boards leaning into selective, high-stakes bets in a market defined by sovereign capital, tougher subsidy rules, and more creative deal structures.