UK takeover wave gathers pace as Tate & Lyle and Intertek draw bidders

A fresh wave of takeover activity is sweeping through the London market, with the number of announced bids for UK companies passing 28 by early June, equivalent to more than one a week. The pace of deal-making has caught the attention of investors and policymakers alike, reviving a long-running debate about the valuation of British business.

The total value of announced UK transactions for the year has reached around £39.3 billion, comfortably exceeding the £29 billion recorded across the whole of 2025, if all the deals complete as planned. With more than half the year still to run, the figures point to one of the busiest periods for UK mergers and acquisitions in recent memory.

The surge spans a range of sectors and buyer types, from US corporates seeking strategic acquisitions to private equity firms hunting for undervalued assets. The common thread is a sense that London-listed companies are trading at prices that look cheap to acquirers with the means to act.

Household names in play

Among the most prominent targets, ingredients group Tate & Lyle jumped after US-based Ingredion agreed a cash deal valuing the British company's equity at roughly £2.7 billion. The agreement brings together two of the world's larger players in food ingredients, and underlines the appeal of established British names to international buyers seeking scale.

Meanwhile, Swedish private equity firm EQT is pursuing FTSE 100 testing and inspection business Intertek with a standing all-cash proposal at £60 a share. Intertek is exactly the kind of high-quality, cash-generative business that private equity covets, and its presence on the target list illustrates how even blue-chip companies are now in play.

• More than 28 UK bids announced so far this year
• Tate & Lyle valued at around £2.7bn in Ingredion's cash agreement
• EQT's offer for Intertek pitched at £60 per share
• Average premium on public deals running at about 45 per cent
• Total announced UK deal value of around £39.3bn

The Takeover Panel extended the deadline for the Intertek situation to mid-June, while budget airline easyJet was also reported to have attracted interest from US investment firm Castlelake. The breadth of targets, spanning ingredients, inspection services and aviation, shows how widely the appetite for UK assets has spread.

Analysts say the relatively low valuations of UK-listed companies, combined with a weaker pound, continue to make London a happy hunting ground for overseas and private equity buyers. For a dollar- or euro-based acquirer, sterling weakness effectively discounts the price of British assets still further.

Why London looks cheap

The valuation gap between UK-listed companies and their international peers has been a persistent source of concern. Many British firms trade at lower multiples of their earnings than equivalent businesses in the United States, a discount that has widened over the past decade as investors favoured faster-growing markets.

That discount creates an opportunity for acquirers. By paying a premium to the prevailing share price, often around 45 per cent on recent deals, a buyer can still secure a company for less than it might cost elsewhere, while offering shareholders an attractive exit. The generous premiums on offer help explain why so many boards have been willing to recommend bids to their investors.

“When good companies trade at a persistent discount, you should not be surprised when someone with cash comes along to take them private or fold them into a larger group.”

— A City fund manager

Background: a debate about London's future

The takeover wave feeds into a wider anxiety about the health of the London Stock Exchange. In recent years a number of companies have chosen to list overseas or shift their primary listing, and the steady removal of firms through acquisition has prompted warnings about the shrinking pool of investable UK businesses.

Supporters of the deals argue that they reward shareholders and reflect a healthy, functioning market. Critics counter that the loss of established companies, particularly to private equity, hollows out the public market and reduces opportunities for ordinary investors to share in their success. The debate has prompted efforts to make London a more attractive place to list and to encourage domestic pension funds to invest more in UK equities.

What happens next

With several situations still unresolved, including the contest for Intertek and the reported interest in easyJet, the coming weeks will show how many of the announced approaches convert into completed deals. The Takeover Panel's deadlines will keep some of these stories in focus through the summer.

Should the pace continue, 2026 looks set to be a blockbuster year for UK takeovers. The bigger question is whether the trend prompts a rethink of how British companies are valued, and whether London can reverse the long-running discount that has made its market such fertile ground for buyers from abroad.