MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
2015 shapes up to be an interesting year... Andrew Dolliver, Restructuring Director and Jonathan Forde, Corporate Finance Director at EY Northern Ireland, look at what’s in store for the Restructuring and Mergers and Acquisitions market for 2015.
Andrew Dolliver
T
he banking sector in Ireland experienced some progress in 2014, particularly with efforts to deleverage their balance sheets and prepare for an upturn in the business cycle. The key focus for 2015 will be to grow new lending while resolving the remaining legacy issues. This can only be seen as a positive for the Northern Irish economy as a whole. The deleveraging process of Northern Irish banks has predominantly been driven by the disposal of loan book portfolios and distressed asset portfolio sales. The most prominent deal of the main banks was Ulster Bank’s ‘Project Aran’ with a loan sale which include a reported £1.2bn of debt secured on Northern Irish assets. This followed the sale of NAMA’s £4.4bn of Northern Irish based debts earlier in 2014. Further debt and asset sales are expected from several of the Northern Irish banks in 2015. While these loan sales have had a favourable impact on banks’ balance sheets it has not rectified the underlying debt issues for borrowers themselves. The need to restructure underlying debts remains an issue for many borrowers, none more so than the SME sector and private property investor.
Alternative Credit Provider 2015, we expect to see borrowers continuing to secure debt right sizing and informal settlement arrangements; however this may now be with an Alternative Credit Provider (ACP’s) who has acquired the debt as opposed to the traditional banker.
72