Renatus

Ireland’s Deal Market Is Holding Its Ground

Howard Marks put it as well as anyone: “You can’t predict. You can prepare.” It is one of those lines that wears well, because it is honest about the limits of foresight without giving anyone an excuse to do nothing.

The question I hear most often from founders thinking about a transaction is a version of the same one: “Is this a good time?” The honest answer is that the question is only half-useful. The more relevant question is whether your business is the kind of business a serious buyer wants to own. Because if it is, the buyers are there — and the data backs that up far more than the headlines would suggest.

Renatus has been tracking Irish M&A activity for several years now — deal by deal, quarter by quarter, sector by sector. Each quarter, in association with The Currency, we publish a detailed report on what is happening in the market. What 2025 and the first quarter of 2026 tell us is worth pausing on.

Seven Years Of Things Nobody Saw Coming

Consider what the last seven years have thrown at the market. A global pandemic. A major land war in Europe. Escalating tension in the Middle East with knock-on effects across global energy markets. The fastest interest rate tightening cycle in a generation. Inflation prints nobody had taken seriously since the 1980s. Supply chains that buckled, snapped back, and buckled again. Handed that list in 2019, you would have forecast a graveyard. You would have been wrong.

Across much of Europe, dealmaking did stall in 2025. Geopolitical tension, trade disruption, and lingering rate pressure widened valuation gaps and walked buyers and sellers away from deals they might otherwise have closed. Against that backdrop, Irish M&A volumes increased by eight per cent year-on-year, reaching 499 transactions. Not a record. But in context, it matters. UK acquirers completed 101 Irish deals — up 35 per cent on the prior year. US buyers increased their activity from 45 to 60 transactions. These are not passive observers. They are strategic acquirers with deliberate theses about Ireland: as a platform for European expansion, and as a source of quality assets in technology, financial services, and industrials.

The reason activity holds up — even through cycles like this one — is structural. The underlying machinery of M&A does not switch off. Strategic acquirers have boards, plans, and synergy targets. Financial sponsors have committed capital with finite hold periods and LPs who expect deployment. The buyers cannot all sit on the sidelines at the same time, and they do not.

The Bar Moved, Not The Buyers

What changed in 2025 is not whether buyers are active. It is what they are looking for. Higher financing costs sharpened discipline. Acquirers got more selective. Businesses with strong cash

generation, defensible market positions, and a credible path to scale found motivated buyers. Businesses that could not clearly articulate those things found the process considerably harder. The buyer pool for quality Irish companies is deep. Deep does not mean indiscriminate.

That selectivity shows up in where the deal flow comes from, too. Fast forward to Q1 2026, and international flow has eased slightly — US buyers in particular have pulled back on the back of policy volatility. But in their place, something arguably more significant has emerged: Irish companies buying Irish companies, at pace. In-market transactions jumped 49 per cent year-on-year in Q1 2026, accounting for 43 per cent of all deals in the period. A material acceleration, and not, I think, a blip. Domestic confidence is strong, modified domestic demand is growing, and Irish companies sitting on solid balance sheets are increasingly using acquisition as a primary growth lever rather than an organic-only strategy.

Financial services remains the most active sector — 29 transactions in Q1 2026 alone, up 16 per cent year-on-year — as consolidation continues across wealth management, insurance and accountancy. Technology and telecoms are seeing steady interest, particularly in cybersecurity. Construction services have had a notable uptick, underpinned by infrastructure spending and persistent housing demand.

Private Equity: Fewer Deals, Better Deals

What changed in 2025 is not whether buyers are active. It is what they are looking for. Higher financing costs sharpened discipline. Acquirers got more selective. Businesses with strong cash

generation, defensible market positions, and a credible path to scale found motivated buyers. Businesses that could not clearly articulate those things found the process considerably harder. The buyer pool for quality Irish companies is deep. Deep does not mean indiscriminate.

That selectivity shows up in where the deal flow comes from, too. Fast forward to Q1 2026, and international flow has eased slightly — US buyers in particular have pulled back on the back of policy volatility. But in their place, something arguably more significant has emerged: Irish companies buying Irish companies, at pace. In-market transactions jumped 49 per cent year-on-year in Q1 2026, accounting for 43 per cent of all deals in the period. A material acceleration, and not, I think, a blip. Domestic confidence is strong, modified domestic demand is growing, and Irish companies sitting on solid balance sheets are increasingly using acquisition as a primary growth lever rather than an organic-only strategy.

Financial services remains the most active sector — 29 transactions in Q1 2026 alone, up 16 per cent year-on-year — as consolidation continues across wealth management, insurance and accountancy. Technology and telecoms are seeing steady interest, particularly in cybersecurity. Construction services have had a notable uptick, underpinned by infrastructure spending and persistent housing demand.

What This Means For You

If there is a single takeaway, it is this: the businesses winning in the current environment are the ones that were already doing the right things. Strong cash generation. A defensible market position. A management team that can articulate a clear growth strategy. None of that is new. But in a market where buyers are more disciplined and capital is more selective, it has never mattered more.

The better way to think about it is to be always-exit-ready. Not always-for-sale — those are different things — but ready. Financial reporting clean enough that diligence does not surface surprises.

Customer concentration, key-person risk, and contract quality thought about, and where possible addressed, before a buyer raises them. A management team that can articulate the growth story without the founder in the room. A credible answer to the question every serious acquirer eventually asks: what does the next chapter of this business look like, and who is going to lead it?

Businesses that meet that bar transact in good markets and bad ones. The price varies; the optionality does not. Ireland’s M&A market outperformed many of its European peers in 2025, and Q1 2026 showed it adapting rather than stalling. The fundamentals are sound. The opportunities are there. The question, as always, is whether you are ready for them.

Conor Mehigan is an Investment Director at Renatus, a Dublin-based private equity firm. Renatus invests in and partners with ambitious Irish businesses, working alongside management teams to build long-term value. Renatus’s quarterly M&A research is published in association with The Currency. To receive the weekly newsletter tracking deal activity, visit renatus.ie.