UAE Business: Lumina predicts record year for mid-market deal activity – Gulf Digital News

UAE Business: Lumina predicts record year for mid-market deal activity – Gulf Digital News

The overall softening of the market has heighted the overall transactional volume of mergers and acquisitions, as cash rich conglomerates procure tech-based companies at rebased prices, said a report.

Lumina Private Company Index (LPCI) Q2 2022 reflects a significant repricing of deal valuations and cross-border opportunities.

New sectors such as the meta-space are expected to emerge in the months ahead even as Sovereign Wealth Funds are seeking to capitalise on outbound opportunities into UK and Europe.

Emergence of secondaries

The emergence of secondaries VC (venture capital) funds in the region is also a trend to watch said Lumina, the leading corporate finance advisory firm connecting capital and transactions across the Middle East and the UK, which has published its latest quarterly report. The first private company M&A index covering the GCC, the Index tracks private company M&A transaction multiples across a broad range of sectors in the GCC, together with publicly available information in the market.

The Index reports that during Q2, average EBITDA/EV multiple value decreased to 6.2x, reflecting a significant repricing of deal valuations, driven by increased risk associated with global economic slowdowns, inflation and refinancing risk.

Within this context, Lumina has noted how future-focused sub sectors such as FinTech, Ed-Tech and Med-Tech are