EMC’s Regional Corporate Finance Update | September 2026

September 2026

Welcome to our corporate finance review for September 2026. 93 deals were reported across the South East this month. With the summer behind us, deal teams report a busier return to their desks, as processes that paused over the holidays pick back up and a number of transactions push to complete ahead of the Budget on 28th October.

The headline news for the region this month was the launch of the British Business Bank’s £210m South East Investment Fund, and we were invited to the launch event in Brighton. The fund offers loans from £25,000 to £2m, managed by The FSE Group, and equity investments of up to £5m, managed by Maven Capital Partners. It has already made its first investment: a £250,000 loan to Basingstoke technology company Process Vision.

The timing is welcome. The Bank of England held interest rates at 3.75% in September, but with three of the nine Monetary Policy Committee members voting for a rise, and inflation expected to climb above 4% early next year, the cost of debt is unlikely to ease soon. We hope the new fund can help to plug the funding gap this creates.

All eyes now turn to Chancellor John Healey’s first Budget on 28th October. With the Government committed to not raising income tax, VAT or employee National Insurance, Capital Gains Tax has been widely reported as the front runner among revenue-raising options, with calls in some quarters to align CGT with income tax rates. Partner Michael Pay explored what this could mean for business owners in our recent article, What next for Capital Gains Tax? On a £10m sale, a move to the 45% additional rate would take the tax bill from around £2.4m to £4.5m. Nothing has been confirmed, and the timing of any change is as uncertain as the rate itself, but we have seen an uptick in owners choosing to begin a process now so that they have options, whatever the outcome.

During the month, we were delighted to support Tenzing-backed Tillo on its acquisition of Italian group Amilon. This is Tillo’s second acquisition and marks a significant step in its international growth strategy, with the combined group now processing more than £3bn of gift card value each year.

In other deal news, Hampshire-based demolition, recycling and aggregates group Collard Group acquired Raymond Brown Rookery Holdco, including a 40-acre recycling facility near Fareham, from Elysian Capital and other sellers. The deal extends Collard’s recycling and aggregates operations along the South Coast and is the latest in a series of acquisitions for the group – another example of the regional buy-and-build activity we continue to see across the South East.