SWITZERLAND Trends and Developments Contributed by: Daniel Raun, Andreas Hinsen and Rashid Bahar, Advestra
Advestra Uraniastrasse 9
8001 Zurich Switzerland Tel: +41 58 510 92 00 Email: info@advestra.ch Web: www.advestra.ch
Introduction The year 2025 in Swiss M&A has shown similar activ - ity as 2024 in terms of the number of deals but an increase in deal value. According to KPMG’s Clarity on M&A: 2025 Review & 2026 Outlook , the number of transactions increased slightly from 464 to 502 while deal value increased from USD115.1bn to USD166.8bn. With this increase in deal value, M&A in Switzerland has reached the record levels of the pandemic years 2021 and 2022 in terms of deal value. In terms of number of deals, this is the highest number recorded for the past ten years, except for those two years when the number of deals was even higher (604 and 647, respectively). This is similar to international trends that show a small increase in deal numbers but larger growth in deal value, mainly driven by several large-cap transactions. It also shows the resilience of the Swiss M&A mar - ket given ongoing uncertainty from an economic and political perspective, which usually negatively affects the M&A markets. The most active sectors remain telecommunications, media and technology (TMT); pharmaceuticals and life sciences; and industrial. Private equity activity remains an important factor for deal making with sponsors still having access to “dry powder” in the form of unused capital commitments, even though involvement has further dropped to approximately 28%, presumably as financing conditions became more stringent and the competition for interesting targets increased. The largest transactions in 2025 with Swiss involve - ment were the spin-off of Amrize by Holcim, the acquisition of Avidity Biosciences by Novartis as well as the merger between Baloise and Helvetia. Other
notable transactions with Swiss involvement include the acquisitions of Techem by a consortium led by Partners Group and the sale of ABB’s robotics division to SoftBank. As in past years, Swiss companies again acquired more abroad than vice versa. However, according to a Deloitte study (M&A Activity of Swiss SMEs Report 2026 | Deloitte Switzerland), the number of pure domestic M&A transactions grew by 10% year-on- year, while inbound transactions rose by 65% (104 transactions) and outbound deals fell by 25% (116 transactions). Overall, Switzerland remains an attractive M&A market with its stable economy and regulatory environment, few investment restrictions, low inflation rates, favour - able tax regime and a leading position in innovation. While the CHF has appreciated in comparison with main currencies making Swiss targets comparatively more expensive, the overall geopolitical and econom - ic stability of Switzerland also contributes to making Switzerland an interesting jurisdiction for international investors. Due to these factors, combined with the global trends of undeployed capital and the pressure of private equity to become active again, it is expected that M&A activity will rise again in 2026 as benchmark interest rates stabilise in Switzerland and make financ - ing costs more predictable. This trend may also be supported by an uptick in distressed M&A as highly leveraged firms may face a challenging situation when they need to refinance. It is expected that 2026 will keep certain trends, such as transactions remaining more complex and time- consuming than in previous years. Complexity is likely to increase as a result of AI‑driven disruption, uncer -
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