Dnipro Hotel Real estate and construction

While a number of M&A trends can be traced back to late 2019; the pandemic, changing consumer behaviour and concerns regarding supply security have accelerated changes that were already underway.

Digitisation:

with digital transformation a key strategic goal for most businesses, the providers of new technologies are themselves targets for acquisition. Ukraine’s IT sector has always been highly regarded and is getting stronger with every passing year. According to the State Statistics Service of Ukraine, exports of computer services increased to USD2.1 billion in the first nine months of 2020, reflecting YoY growth of 15 percent. This growth helped propel Ukrainian M&A in the innovation and technology sector to USD184 million in 2020. Deals included Restream’s USD50 million funding round led by Sapphire Ventures and Insight Partners, after the multiplatform live-streaming company announced 300 percent growth in the number of monthly views for the first seven months of 2020.

E-commerce:

online retail and remote services have been able to take advantage of the decline in more traditional consumer

segments resulting from quarantine measures, as well as the rapid shift to remote working. Online delivery services in particular have seen a boom in demand during the pandemic for obvious reasons. In Ukraine, local delivery service Glovo reported growth of 40 to 50 percent ahead of budget, helping the company to achieve breakeven despite investing millions of euros into developing its services.

Changes in supply chains:

lockdowns in China and other parts of Asia during Q4 2019 caused widespread disruption to global supply chains, leading some companies to reassess their dependence on the region and look for alternative sources of supply. Pentup demand and trade growth accelerated the process of launching new delivery routes, such as a twice-weekly rail freight service connecting European and Asian destinations via the Baltic-Black Sea transport corridor and Baltic-Black Sea transport corridor connecting the Black Sea and the Baltic.

This, combined with Ukraine opening up its infrastructure to public private partnerships (PPP), saw USD164 million of deals announced in the transport and infrastructure sector.