January 2026 M&A Review: UK Edition

January 2026 did not feel like a frothy month for UK dealmaking — but it did feel like a purposeful one. Across insurance, private markets, pharma, and AI services, bidders showed they would pay up for assets with scarce capabilities, clearer cashflows, or strategic relevance. At the same time, boards signalled they were no longer willing to accept “UK discount” pricing just to get a deal done.

That tension — ambition on one side, valuation discipline on the other — ran through the month’s most consequential stories. A headline-grabbing approach for a London-listed specialty insurer put consolidation back on the front page. Private equity made a statement move into secondaries. A UK pharma giant reached across the Atlantic for pipeline depth. And, in technology, the month’s standout theme was capability acquisition: buying teams, platforms, and implementation leverage, rather than vague “digital transformation” narratives.

What emerged was a market that looks more confident than 2025’s choppiest periods, yet still deeply selective. Buyers arrived with sharper theses, and, crucially, with timelines — the UK’s takeover framework continues to force clarity, quickly, once interest becomes public. That made January’s month-to-month tape unusually readable: fewer rumours, more defined price points, and more explicit pushback when those prices fell short.

The five deals that shaped January —

1. Zurich Insurance Group tests the price of Beazley —

No story captured the month’s mood better than Zurich’s public approach for Beazley. The proposed offer valued Beazley at roughly £7.67bn, at a price of 1,280p per share, and immediately reignited a familiar debate: are UK-listed assets still materially undervalued relative to global peers, or are boards simply anchoring to last cycle’s multiples?

Beazley’s response framed January’s broader posture. The board rejected the bid as materially undervaluing the business, while keeping the door open to “all options” that deliver value. Zurich, meanwhile, faces a clear deadline to declare a firm intention to make an offer or step away — a reminder that UK public M&A, once disclosed, rarely allows extended ambiguity.

2. EQT buys Coller Capital to enter secondaries —

If January’s biggest story was about public-market value, its most strategically significant deal was arguably private. EQT agreed to acquire Coller Capital for $3.2bn, marking a major move into the fast-growing secondaries market, where liquidity needs, longer holding periods, and a tougher exit environment have pushed investors to trade stakes rather than wait for traditional realisations.

EQT’s CEO, Per Franzen, called secondaries “an increasingly important tool for clients in managing liquidity and portfolio construction.” The line matters because it captures what secondaries have become in this cycle: not an opportunistic corner of private markets, but a core mechanism for managing duration risk.

3. GSK reaches for pipeline depth with RAPT Therapeutics —

In healthcare, January’s tone was strategic rather than defensive. GSK entered an agreement to acquire RAPT Therapeutics at $58 per share, for an estimated equity value of $2.2bn, with closing expected in the first quarter of 2026. The prize is ozureprubart, a long-acting anti-IgE antibody being developed for food allergy protection, and a clear fit with GSK’s Respiratory, Immunology & Inflammation focus.

Tony Wood put the rationale plainly: “The addition of ozureprubart brings another promising new, potential best-in-class treatment to GSK’s pipeline.” In a month where many deals were about financial structure or valuation arbitrage, this one was about product — and about pace.

4. Accenture snaps up Faculty as AI capability becomes M&A currency —

January’s most symbolic UK tech story was not a mega-cap platform merger. It was a services giant buying execution capacity. Accenture agreed to acquire Faculty, a UK-based AI services and products company, with more than 400 staff expected to join after completion, and Faculty’s CEO, Marc Warner, set to become Accenture’s chief technology officer.

Accenture did not disclose financial terms, but reporting pegged the deal at more than $1bn — a reminder that, in this cycle, applied AI talent, tooling, and delivery credibility can command strategic pricing. Accenture’s chair and CEO, Julie Sweet, said: “With Faculty, we will further accelerate our strategy to bring trusted, advanced AI to the heart of our clients’ businesses.” That is not a generic slogan; it is a buying thesis, in one sentence.

5. Apax Partners moves on Pinewood Technologies Group —

Rounding out the month was a classic take-private setup: a vertical software provider, a defined cash offer, and a deadline. Pinewood said it was in talks with Apax regarding a possible 500p-per-share offer, valuing the company at about £575.5m. The market reaction — a sharp share price move — spoke to how quickly take-private logic can return when a bidder presents a clean number.

The subtext here is broader than automotive retail, extending to private equity’s continuing appetite for sector-specific SaaS and workflow platforms, particularly those with sticky customers, predictable revenue, and operational upside once the quarterly spotlight fades.

Bottom line —

Across the month’s top stories, three themes repeated.

First, scarcity is being priced. Specialty insurance capability, secondaries scale, credible AI delivery, and late-stage pipeline assets all attracted strategic interest because they are hard to replicate quickly.

Second, boards are pushing back — publicly, and with confidence. The era of “take the premium and move on” is giving way to more explicit defence of standalone value, particularly where management believes a multi-year compounding story is being discounted.

Third, the UK remains a market where timelines shape behaviour. Once approaches surface, bidders and targets are pulled into clearer commitments, faster, which can sharpen decision-making — and expose weak conviction.

Business leaders watching January’s UK M&A should not focus only on the headline numbers. The more useful lessons sit underneath the deal sums.

• Build your “defence file” before you need it. If your valuation case depends on future delivery, make it legible now — KPIs, milestones, and an investor-grade narrative that travels.
• Treat capability as an asset class. Faculty’s story is a reminder that talent density, tooling, and repeatable delivery can be bought — and will be, at strategic prices.
• Assume scrutiny, and plan for speed. UK public M&A moves quickly once disclosed. Even if you are not for sale, being unprepared is a governance risk.
• Integration discipline is the real premium. Buyers are signalling that they will fund conviction, but only when the post-deal operating plan is concrete, and culturally plausible.

January’s message was not that the floodgates are open. It was that buyers are back for the right assets — and that “right” now means strategically specific, defensibly priced, and execution-ready.