Christmas M&A wrap: It's still snowing deals

The pipeline of M&A deals on the ASX isn’t showing signs of slowing down even with Christmas just a few days away.

It has been a record year for global M&A activity – 63% growth on 2021 – that’s a value beyond US$5.6 trillion, well above the previous record of US$4.4 trillion in 2007.

Of 2021’s total US$2.6 trillion was in the US while another US$1.26 trillion was in Europe.

The ASX has seen its fair share too and there were another bunch of deals to unpack this morning.

Easily the biggest was real estate investor Charter Hall (ASX:CHC) which will be buying a 50% stake in private fund manager Paradice Investment Management.

CHC will pay $207 million which represents an NPAT multiple of 10 times which will be issued predominantly in shares.

Paradice boss, David Paradice and Charter Hall CEO David Harrison said both firms would be a good fit with the latter saying it would diversify Charter Hall’s Funds Under Management and earnings streams as well as new client relationships across wholesale and retail equity segments.

Charter Hall (ASX:CHC) share price chart

Other pre-Christmas M&A deals

Industrial company Maas (ASX:MGH) told shareholders it was acquiring residential home builder Brett Harvey Constructions for ~1.13 shares, worth $5.6 million at the current share price of $4.94 per share.

It also announced it was buying two further quarries in central Queensland to help its Central Queensland construction materials business.

The company said the pair will contribute between $2 million and $2.5 million in earnings on an annualised basis.

Also, wealth platform Praemium (ASX:PPS) announced it was parting ways with its operations in the UK, Jersey, Hong Kong and Dubai – selling the lot to Morningstar for ~$65.1 million.

The company says the deal will help it focus on its Australian operations and allow for its clientele in those nations to be better served.

The deal comes less than two months after a merger bid from fund manager Netwealth (ASX:NWL) was rejected. While Praemium indicated it would be open to a higher price, it has not yet received a higher offer.

Rounding out today’s deals was AppsVillage (ASX:APV) which despite being the smallest, rose the most of all today’s companies announcing deals.

It announced it secured CA$2.9 million in funding as well as conditional approval to list on Canada’s TSX Venture Exchange.

While the listing price of 5 cents per share is above its current ASX price it is a hefty discount to the 20 cent per share price it listed at in 2019.