EMEA Private Equity Market Snapshot Issue 28

Welcome to the 28^th issue of the EMEA Private Equity Market Snapshot (PEMS), a quarterly publication focusing on the Private Equity (PE) market in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Deal-making in Q4 2020 slowed, with General Partners' (GPs') investments in EMEA seeing a significant drop as a result of a lack of large deals and the Nordics alone experiencing growth in deal value. That said, Asia came out strong, winning all high-value investments of EMEA-based GPs during the fourth quarter.

Within the Venture Capital (VC) segment, however, the overall downward trend was reversed, with VCs seeing a significant increase in capital deployed in the EMEA region, despite a lower deal count. We explore some of the factors affecting VC deal-making in detail in our report on our fourth annual survey gauging industry sentiment among PE and VC professionals globally. For a year that has presented unprecedented market challenges, the optimism leading into 2021 among PE/VC investors is striking. While we see fewer exits on the horizon, deal-making activity looks strong.

We close with a feature article on the rise of special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) in Southeast Asia, which are increasingly being viewed as a more favorable alternative to the more traditional initial public offering (IPO) route to take companies public, particularly among tech-focused startups and unicorns, who are attracted by the flexibility and cost-efficiency of SPACs.