Without this €6.4 billion deal, the Portuguese transaction market would have ended the year with declines in both number and capital raised. Frulact and Draycott also stood out.
Portugal escaped a difficult year for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) thanks to one mega-deal: the sale of Novobanco. In a start to 2025 marked by US tariffs, geopolitical uncertainty, still high interest rates and the fall of Luís Montenegro’s first government, fewer transactions were closed (and those that were signed took longer), but the transactional market managed to score in the millions.
Portugal had its best year since 2021 in terms of capital moved in M&A operations. Between acquisitions, asset purchases, private equity or venture capital investments involving Portuguese companies, €14.8 billion was accumulated, according to TTR data up to 15 December, sent to ECO. This is an increase of 17.5% over the previous year, although significantly below the €19.2 billion of the pandemic, a time of historically low interest rates.
It should be noted that at least half of the transactions did not have their values disclosed, which means that the actual value is higher. What is certain is that this amount was only possible with the sale of Novobanco to the French group BPCE, owner of Natixis, for €6.4 billion. It stood out in the national tables, but also in the rankings for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
“2025 was not marked by great euphoria in the mergers and acquisitions market in Portugal. Although there were some significant transactions, the total number of operations fell by around 10% compared to the previous year. The only exception to this is the value, due to the effect of the sale of Novobanco to BPCE. At the end of the year, however, the general feeling is much more positive than at the beginning”, says Afonso Lima, partner at Clearwater Portugal.
Without this sale, national M&A would be significantly below not only 2021 but also 2024. “Activity in 2025 was strongly marked by the sale of Novobanco (which, in value, represents practically the same as the aggregate of the remaining transactions in ten months of activity), but in a context of a decrease in the total value of transactions carried out, a trend already seen in 2024 compared to 2023”, points out lawyer Bernardo Abreu Mota, partner at CS Associados.
The lawyer explains that, over the last two years, there has been “a slowdown in large and medium-sized transactions originating from international investors, mainly due to the global macroeconomic context, namely the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, as well as Donald Trump’s erratic tariff policy”.
However, for advisor Afonso Lima, the forced halt caused by the White House’s protectionist policy ended up being positive for structuring operations. “Ironically, Trump’s Tariff Liberation Day may also have been a liberation day for the M&A market. The fog created by the pre-announcement of tariffs and the advances and retreats in this trade war put fundamental decision-making on hold. But in fact, this period proved to be one of reflection and maturation”, argues the partner at Clearwater Portugal. In his opinion, “most of the 2025 projects, even those that have not yet materialised, have at their core more solid strategic planning and a more refined transaction rationale”.
As Novobanco was a special case, banking did not stand out at sector level. Real estate, as in recent years, was the most active segment in 2025, with 83 transactions recorded between January and November (most recent official report), followed by technology with 55 operations, notably PHC and Cegid, Claranet and Nos, Plexus and Bi4all, and, more recently, Altice’s data centre in Covilhã. In these 11 months, there were 532 deals on TTR’s radar, totalling €14.7 billion.
In addition to technology, healthcare, education and agri-food were also the focus of attention due to the consolidation strategy. “Also noteworthy is the growing dynamism of large national companies investing in inorganic growth across borders, such as Semapa, Sonae, Lusiaves and Brisa, among others. This is a clear sign that M&A strategies are an essential driver of growth”, explains António Rodrigues, Strategy and Corporate Finance partner at PwC.
The expectation of the advisors that ECO contacted throughout the year was that the red tide of the first few months would begin to turn green by December, primarily due to the need for private equity funds to sell in order to reinvest.
They were not wrong, because the second half of 2025 marks the closure of important deals such as Frulact, sold for around €600 million to Italian food ingredients company Nexture. João Coelho Borges’ private equity firm, Draycott, headed to France to “perfume” a €490 million deal in the luxury glass industry, which was the largest ever for the Portuguese firm.
In the family business sector, another difficult deal was concluded between Impresa and Italy’s MediaForEurope (MFE), which acquired 32.9% of the owner of SIC and Expresso for €17.3 million. And, a few days before Christmas, Semapa signed an agreement to sell 100% of its stake in Secil to Spain’s Cementos Molins for €1.4 billion, which catapulted the cement company’s shares up 25%. This is another significant figure that will contribute to increasing the rankings, especially in terms of volume.
Among these two hundred with the hidden price is the purchase by Jerónimo Martins Agroalimentar, a subsidiary of the owner of Pingo Doce, of the fruit and vegetable group Luís Vicente, which belongs to one of the richest businessmen in Portugal. The international holding company Nuvi, which brings together Luís Vicente’s investments, decided to sell the fruit and vegetable company to the “crown jewel” of the Soares dos Santos family, with whom it has a joint venture, SupremeFruits.
For lawyer Bernardo Abreu Mota, the Capitalisation and Resilience Fund programme and fiscal policies that promote investment in private equity funds dedicated to specific purposes, such as research and development, are “commendable, as they allow public funds to be invested in the economy according to best investment and management practices. Predictably, these investments will contribute to the professionalisation and growth of a significant number of SMEs”.
Races that stayed at the starting line
Portuguese companies also had a year of several races without crossing the finish line. In cross-border battles, foreign opponents ended up winning. One example was the Lusiaves group, one of Portugal’s leading poultry producers and one of the biggest buyers of the year, which took on Ukraine’s MHP in the battle for Spanish chicken producer Uvesa, even increasing its bid to €380 million. In turn, the José de Mello group was among the four finalists for the acquisition of Frulact, the food preparation company in Maia, but the French fund Adrian ended up turning to Italian investors.
On three other fronts, Impresa failed to sell its headquarters to a BPI fund, the real estate portal Idealista withdrew from the process of acquiring its competitor Kyero due to alleged delays in the Competition Authority’s investigation, and Luz Saúde and C2 MedCapital opted not to proceed with the purchase of Grupo Hospitalar das Beiras.
António Rodrigues, a partner at PwC, speaks of a “year of contrasts” in which the challenges of private equity exits increased, especially at the international level, namely in “reducing the backlog of companies in the portfolio to return money to investors and facilitate the raising of new funds”. “There is pressure on company valuations, largely due to the uncertainty of the current context, marked above all by regional conflicts. As a result, conducting restricted sales processes, aimed at a small group of potential buyers, is becoming a growing trend”, explains the consultant, adding that this is also due to the need to respond to buyers’ expectations.
Portugal follows Europe at two speeds
Portugal followed the European trend of declining volume and growth in value. According to data from Bain & Company and Dealogic, the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region saw an increase in capital raised, but the number of deals fell by 7% year-on-year. This is yet another parameter in which Europe lags behind the United States and China, which were the most dynamic regions of the year. In fact, the world’s two largest economies supported global M&A, which is set to end 2025 with the second highest value ever: $4.8 trillion (around €4.1 trillion), representing a 36% increase over 2024.
The United States accounted for almost half of the total value of strategic transactions in 2025, followed by Greater China (China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan), according to the report Looking Back at M&A in 2025: Behind the Great Rebound, prepared by Bain. In fact, there were even more handshakes between these powers, such as the US company Starbucks selling a majority stake in its retail operations in China to the Chinese company Boyu Capital.
For Europe, and consequently Portugal, to ride this wave, António Rodrigues offers some final advice: “As structural forces such as high interest rates, rising public debt, geopolitical volatility and technological disruption continue to shape the market, dealmakers must adopt a strategic and adaptive approach”.
