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Europe’s February M&A rewarded scarcity, scale, and defensive cashflows. Italy’s MPS pursued Mediobanca in a €16bn tie-up. InPost drew a €7.8bn offer as buyers chased large last-mile platforms. Blackstone and EQT agreed to buy Urbaser for $6.6bn, Germany took a TenneT stake, and Henkel moved for coatings group Stahl.
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February’s UK dealmakers chased scale, stability, and strategic scarcity again. Engie’s £10.5bn agreement for UK Power Networks led the month, while Nuveen’s £9.9bn purchase of Schroders underscored pressure for asset-management scale. NatWest bought Evelyn Partners, nexfibre consolidated fibre via Substantial, and Brookfield-backed Radiant merged with London’s Ori in late February.
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Arctic Wolf buys Sevco to expand exposure assessment capabilities globally. The deal brings Sevco’s asset intelligence onto the Aurora Platform, aiming to help customers and MSPs identify, prioritise, and remediate exposures across hybrid environments. Terms were not disclosed.
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KKR acquires Arctos Partners for $1.4bn, reshaping private equity. The acquisition offers immediate access to a diversified sports portfolio and highlights a shift in private equity towards more sophisticated structures and governance amid increasing regulatory scrutiny.
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SLR acquires sustainability advisory firm SB&CO to expand sustainability solutions. Founded in 2020, SB&CO specialises in strategy, ESG, and decarbonisation planning, aiming to serve global clients’ needs effectively.
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Advent and FedEx have agreed a $9.2bn takeover of InPost. The consortium deal will take the European parcel locker operator private, reshaping ownership of one of the region’s fastest-growing last-mile logistics platforms.
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Glencore shares fall after merger talks with Rio Tinto collapse. The mining giant rejected Rio’s terms, citing undervaluation and executive role retention. Glencore emphasises its strong standalone prospects, particularly in copper, while Rio prioritises long-term shareholder value.
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January’s US M&A opened 2026 with cash, speed, and scale. From streaming to medtech and power, buyers chased certainty and category leverage. Five headline deals, led by Netflix’s $82.7bn Warner Bros. push, signalled a market willing to pay up for assets that shorten timelines, widen moats, or lock in demand.
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January’s UK M&A signalled confidence, but buyers stayed disciplined overall. A £7.7bn approach for Beazley set the tone, while EQT’s Coller deal and Accenture’s Faculty acquisition underscored private markets’ pull. Healthcare remained strategic, and take-private logic persisted. For leaders, readiness, clarity, and integration discipline mattered more than bravado this month.
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SpaceX has completed the largest technology acquisition ever recorded globally. Elon Musk’s aerospace company has acquired his artificial intelligence venture xAI in a transaction valuing the combined business at roughly $1.25tn, unifying two of the entrepreneur’s most ambitious projects under a single corporate structure.