Up to 44 percent managers from Central and Eastern Europe see Slovenia as a potential target for M&A, and same can be stated for 19 percent of the West European investors. Poland, Chech Republic and Slovakia remain the most appealing targets for Western investors. The economic environment has deteriorated over the course of last year, but that is not deterring M&A decision makers from retaining a positive outlook on activity for the next 18 months, according to the Deloitte study “Staying on course - M&A in Europe”.¹ 

According to the Deloitte study Western and Central Europe hold top positions in the regional focus of respondents. 75% resp. 58% of survey participants ranked these regions as top choice investment locations. Generally, Europe is preferred, although the emerging Asian markets draw investors' attention as well. Central European respondents in particular do not appear to have any plans for M&A activity further afield than within Central Europe and Western Europe. Asia, North America, Latin America and the Middle East all ranked of little or no importance to them. “Historically, companies in emerging markets have often been prey to takeover bids from businesses in the West. Today, supported by strong economic growth and ambitious management, it is also companies from emerging nations that are increasingly looking across borders for assets,” says Janez Škrubej, manager in FAS, Deloitte Slovenia. The survey results suggest that Eastern European investors are more oriented towards international M&A activities than their Western counterparts.

A significant proportion of European M&A was undertaken in the consumer business and manufacturing sectors, followed by technology, media and telecommunications in Western Europe and energy and resources in Central Europe. “Consumer Business and Energy & Resources are on a strong upward trend for M&A in Central Europe. The trend is for more and more cross-border work driven by the emergence of the bigger foreign retailers. These trends then drive consolidation on the supplier side as they merge to generate economies of scale in supplying such large retailers. E&R is one of the few sectors in Central Europe generating larger transactions,” comments Janez Škrubej. In Cental and Eastern Europe, an area comprised of relatively smaller countries, companies often find that their opportunities to grow domestically through acquisitions are limited, so they are increasingly looking across borders for M&A targets. Up to 60 percent of Eastern European respondents to Deloitte’s survey stated that more than haldf of their M&A activity in the past three years involved companies in a foreign country. In contrast, only 33 percent of Western European resondents made the same claim.
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^{1 Staying on course – M&A in Europe. Raziskava je bila izvedena spomladi 2008 na vzorcu 120 vodilnih evropskih oseb na področju združevanj in prevzemov.} 

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