Analysts at UBS have picked six UK companies they believe could receive takeover approaches, as merger and acquisition activity picks up.
Daniel Stillit and Dilyara Khabrieva said: "We still expect a pick up in headline M&A this year. The economic cycle has turned, valuations are attractive, M&A financing is becoming more available and revenue visibility continues to improve. We believe M&A should rebound once these conditions have turned persistently stable."
The six businesses added to the UBS mergers watchlist include transport groups Go-Ahead, down 6p at £13.98, and National Express, 4.9p lower at 229.5p. Rival Arriva of course has already received an approach from Deutsche Bahn with France's SNCF also reported to be interested. The other new companies on the UBS list are utility group Pennon, off 8.5p at 518.5p, Carphone Warehouse, down 1.7p at 159.6p and its spin-off Talk Talk, 3.2p lower at 130.8p, and finally Virgin Media, up 8p at £11.31. It's noteable that only Virgin is actually higher on the day, and that is probably more to do with the BSkyB ruling than anything else, but still.
