Was October the North West’s top month for acquisitions?

October was, on the whole, a positive month for the North West economy. Listed firms in the region managed to add £4bn to their collective value despite market volatility in the wake of the EU referendum, while SMEs here were named among the top in the UK for exporting.

There was one trend in the stories I wrote throughout last month that really stood out – acquisitions. It seemed that nearly every day, a business here had either purchased or sold to another firm.

Many of the deals involved UK companies from outside my region gaining a foothold in the North West, including London-based Brown Shipley’s swoop for Manchester firm The Roberts Partnership and Leicester’s Shield Group acquiring Oldham-based precision engineering company SPAW Engineering Limited.

The deals spanned a range of sectors, from accountancy (as was the case with Cheshire-based Paysure) and logistics (see W H Bowker Ltd) to legal services (when McHale & Co established its fourth Greater Manchester practice).

Appetite from overseas businesses seemed to be equally high. Towards the end of the October, US-owned multinational Flagship Food Group made waves by snapping up Carlisle-based chilled food manufacturer Calder Foods. Three days later, Liverpool-based vast:visibility, which provides custom software for the online price comparison marketplace, sold a strategic stake to European PE firm HgCapital.

One of the month’s biggest acquisition deals saw Manchester-headquartered network services provider Metronet (UK) purchase infrastructure and hosting company M247 for £47.5m.

With November now well underway, I’m interested to see if the region’s businesses will quieten in the run-up to Christmas, waiting for the New Year before moving in to acquire rival firms or secure buyers to safeguard jobs and unlock growth – or whether they’ll take the impending December slump as a cue to get things wrapped up in the next couple of weeks.