PKF Francis Clark advises on 93 deals in 2022

PKF Francis Clark, an accountancy firm that recently opened its base in Southampton, has reported that 2022 was a busy year for its Corporate Finance team.

The firm advised on 93 deals with a combined value of £1.3billion in the year just finished, this number includes a number of private transactions outside of the public domain.

A notable deal that PKF Francis Clark advised on was the sale of the UK’s largest swimming pool distributor, Golden Coast Ltd, to the multinational Pollet Pool Group. This was one in a series of deals across multiple sectors including energy and infrastructure, healthcare, professional services, and financial services.

PKF Francis Clark, which has nine offices across the South and South West, is a member of the PKF International Network of Independent Accountancy firms. The team at PFK Francis Clark collaborated with their PKF International colleagues in advising on numerous cross-border transactions in 2022. A notable example of this was when PFK advised the Fortus Group, an Irish founded security solutions distributor, during their acquisition of three UK businesses.

According to the Experian MarketIQ database, PKF member firms advised on more transactions in the UK and Ireland in 2022 than any of the Big Four accountancy firms.

Head of Corporate Finance at PKF Francis Clark Andrew Killick said: ‘’ Our analysis of data collated by Experian shows a 5% decline in deal volumes in the Southern region of the UK last year, while the national picture was broadly flat.

‘’It’s perhaps surprising that this decline wasn’t greater, given all the challenges of the past year, with decade-high interest rates, inflation exceeding 10% and the war in Ukraine. The 1,751 deals completed in the Southern region still represented the second highest level of activity in the last decade, following a record year in 2021’’.

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