AUSTRIA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Markus Fellner, Paul Luiki and Peter Blaschke, Fellner Wratzfeld & Partner
Austrian market participants’ activity in 2025 contin - ued to be robust but selective in an environment that continues to be impacted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and an increasingly volatile situation in the Middle East. There appears to be a cautious approach among investors, likely influenced by macroeconomic uncertainties and regulatory developments. Strategic investors In 2025, strategic investors continued to dominate Austria’s M&A landscape, accounting for around 90% of all transactions with a total of 201 deals. This highlights an ongoing focus on acquisitions driven by long-term business objectives, such as market expan - sion, technological innovation and operational syner - gies. Despite evolving market conditions, the strong presence of strategic buyers underlines their commit - ment to sustainable growth and value creation. Financial investors, including private equity and ven - ture capital, slightly decreased their activity in 2025, with the number of deals falling from 25 to 20. This is consistent with global trends, as strategic acquisi - tions of companies or key technologies and portfolio streamlining remain the primary drivers of M&A trans - actions. Strategic investors are expected to maintain their dominance in 2026. In industries undergoing digitali - sation and sustainability transformations, companies are focusing on their core business and mitigating possible regulatory and geopolitical risks. However, if financing conditions improve, private equity investors could gain a stronger foothold and increase their share of transactions. Sector dominance in the last year In 2025, Austria’s industrial sector led the market in terms of transaction volume with 66 deals. It was closely followed by the telecommunications, media and technology (TMT) sector, and consumer products and retail. In terms of transaction values, the life sciences and chemicals sector, with a transaction volume of over EUR8.9 billion, and the financial services sector, with a transaction volume of over EUR8.4 billion, took the place of the usually strong TMT sector due to cross-
border mega-deals. These figures highlight the signifi - cance of global interest in Austria’s M&A landscape. The strength of the life sciences and chemicals and financial services sector is in alignment with global trends focusing on digital transformation and inno - vation. Companies in these sectors actively pursue acquisitions to strengthen their technological capabili - ties and maintain competitiveness in a global market. The numbers show that Austrian market participants are actively involved in this global trend, and benefit from using technology effectively for strategic pur - poses. In 2026, technology and strategic investments are expected to rise, with particular emphasis on AI and digital infrastructure. Where in some sectors M&A deals will occur selectively, financial investors have large amounts of dry powder to invest in suitable, stra - tegic investments. Thus, it is expected that the num - ber of large deals will stay at a comparably high level. Although outbound deals accounted for around 35% of the total number of transactions in 2025, they were the main driver of market value, accounting for 90% of the year’s total volume. Austrian acquirers pre - dominantly focused their high-volume investments on North America, particularly Canada, due to a few large-scale transactions. However, Germany remained the most frequent destination for strategic expansion within Europe. In contrast, inbound activity accounted for almost half of all deals measured by volume, but saw a significant decline in total value compared to the previous year. Meanwhile, the domestic market remained relatively quiet. The highlight of inbound activity was the strong demand for Austrian innova - tion. High-profile exits such as Frauscher Sensortech - nik to Wabtec for EUR675 million and TTTech Auto to NXP for EUR603 million emphasise the ongoing strategic importance of Austrian high-tech companies to international conglomerates.
Recent Legal Changes EU Listing Act package
Regulation (EU) 2024/2809, the central pillar of the EU Listing Act package, came into force on 4 December 2024. The EU Listing Act introduces an overhaul of the framework for European capital markets. Aimed
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