EMC’s Regional Corporate Finance Update | March

March 2026

Welcome to our corporate finance review for March 2026. Like many in recent years, the month saw significant macro impacts with huge disruptions to supply chains and energy prices coming out of the Middle East conflict. Despite this, deal teams report being busy with a rush of completions being announced before the change of the tax year and previously announced increase to Business Asset Disposal Relief for selling shareholders. These deals continue to be reported and will impact the stats for both March and April.

The Bank of England held interest rates at 3.75% during the month. Expert views on interest rates have seen a significant recent shift with the long-term expectation now anticipating rate increases rather than decreases. Increased rates reduce debt affordability for business buyers as well as hurting business valuations.

Despite this the month saw strong deal flow across the region including two deal completions here at EMC. While debt is not as cheap as it has been in recent years, there remains strong appetite from high streets and the alternative funding market to deploy capital with competitive rates available for SMEs with a committed plan for growth.

The acceleration of AI implementation is heavily impacting deal process and a buyer’s deal assessment. For owners looking to transact the presentation of your defensibility against technology advancements has never been more important. We are also seeing investor behaviour beginning to shift with hesitancy on AI’s long term impact in certain technology subsectors. The pace of change is creating a challenge for predicting medium-term business models which can make an investors three to five year investment thesis very challenging to prove out.

Notable deals in March included the sale of Portsmouth Harbour Ferry Company to the majority owner of Uber Boat by Thames Clippers for £11.6m and the sale of Hampshire-based managed IT services provider, Tailor Made Technologies to West-Sussex based Global 4. We were also delighted to be recognised at the recent Insider 2026 Dealmakers awards. Our role in the sale of Sowga to Pareto earned Private Equity Deal of the Year, while Partner Ryan Smith was named Dealmaker of the Year.