UK business owners in the M&A market are seeing continued resilience and renewed confidence across a wide variety of sectors in 2025, with cross-border investment emerging as a prominent trend enhancing business growth.

When seeking investment for your business, exploring overseas for growth opportunities holds the key to success. This is because acquirers located overseas are increasingly targeting UK businesses and are attracted by their strategic value, innovation and ambition for expanding their international growth.

The UK has seen its inbound deal flow strengthen in recent years, with overseas companies attracted to what UK businesses can offer regarding long-term investment. By attracting the eyes of overseas buyers across the border, UK business owners are presented with a valuable and unique opportunity of positioning their businesses for international acquisition.

Following on from our previous Shared Insight articles - where we looked at high-performing M&A sectors in 2025 and buyer behaviour and M&A deal influences in 2025 based on MarktoMarket ‘UK M&A Valuation Barometer’ report published in July – this article will examine what the report highlights for cross-border investment flows into the UK.

In this article, we explore the geographic premium and why overseas buyers target UK companies according to MarktoMarket’s data. We will also focus on international investors and the strategic value they see in UK businesses, how your business can strengthen your appeal to overseas buyers and how GS Verde Group can support your business with successful positioning in the market for cross-border transactions.

The Geographic Premium and What the Data Reveals

For your business to experience growth success beyond the UK, either through seeking long-term investment or preparing for exit, it’s essential to understand the role and mindset of international acquirers.

According to MarktoMarket’s UK M&A Valuation Barometer’ report, which examines M&A activity from June 2025, the mid-market transactions that completed during this time were the result of inbound acquirers from overseas showing strong interest in what UK businesses had to offer.

The report demonstrates a variety of the cross-border investments that occurred in June 2025, including:

• Qualcomm’s acquisition of Alphawave IP: The £1.77 billion transaction clearly illustrates how overseas technology companies are targeting UK semiconductor and AI infrastructure expertise.
• The acquisition of Ultra Precision Control Systems (Ultra PCS) to Eaton Corporation: The £1.14 billion deal demonstrates the UK as being a prominent and strong choice for overseas companies regarding defence and aerospace firms to secure future growth opportunities.
• IonQ’s £794 million acquisition of Oxford Ionics: This successful deal, highlighted in the report, showcases the UK as being the go-to hub for global deeptech and university-led innovation regarding emerging technologies.
• HGGC’s acquisition of Inspired PLC: The £184 million deal - equating to a £245m EV according to MarktoMarket’s report, involved one of the UK’s leading energy and ESG consultancies. It is a clear indication that the UK is attracting overseas private equity investors who are seeking scalable UK businesses for sustainability-focused solutions.

These deals strongly demonstrate the UK mid-market as being an attractive opportunity for overseas investors regarding industry expertise, knowledge, innovation and a strong competitive edge for growth.

Why Overseas Buyers Target UK Companies

When it comes to seeking acquisition and investment opportunities, international companies have their eyes firmly set on the UK market for strategic and structural reasons.

This means that by acquiring a well-established business in an innovative UK market, an overseas company doesn’t have to build a new one from scratch and can instead concentrate on enhancing an already-established business with existing teams, clients, products, services and operations.

The key reasons for this include:

• Innovation and market leadership
• Access to a fully skilled and talented team
• Regulatory and market stability
• Strategic access to competitive markets
• Buying a company with healthy financials

The data in MarktoMarket’s report shows that when it comes to stable mid-market valuations, deals under £250 million demonstrated 6.0x EV/EBITDA and 1.3x EV/Revenue - reassuring overseas acquirers that the UK market offers predictable and steady investments for long-term growth.

The Strategic Value that International Investors See

A business’s financial status is only one aspect of sale, with overseas buyers often looking for acquisition opportunities in the UK where businesses deliver strategic value.

MarktoMarket’s research in its July report demonstrates recent inbound transactions are rooted from overseas acquirers pursuing UK businesses as an investment due to sharing the same long-term global objectives.

• Key reasons for this include:
• Integration of technology
• Supply chain Security
• Sustainability and ESG Leadership
• An opportunity to build on an existing platform
• A seller’s reputation and position in a competitive market

How to Strengthen Your Appeal to Overseas Buyers

For UK businesses, having an overseas investor interested in your company is a valuable opportunity to explore growth beyond the UK. Based on patterns and recent transactions across various sectors, it’s clear to see that international buyers value companies that are scalable and have a strong global relevance.

To attract and maximise valuable cross-border opportunities, it’s important to position your business in an attractive light and conduct thorough preparation ahead of time.

As a UK business owner, there are various practical steps you can take to ensure thorough preparation for cross-border transactions, including:

• Highlighting International Relevance: By showing buyers that your products and services are designed to be global solutions and internationally scalable, you can position your UK businesses as more than a contender for an acquisition.
• Strengthening Governance and Transparency: It’s important to demonstrate a business with healthy compliance, governance, and clean financial reporting to an overseas buyer. By addressing these areas within your business early on, you will increase the confidence of the international investor.
• Showcasing Integration Readiness: Positioning your UK business as operationally and culturally adaptable provides the confidence that overseas acquirers need to view your business as investable and experience a smooth transition during the process.
• Building ESG Credentials: UK companies that demonstrate strong environmental, social and governance principles (ESG) increase their chances of attracting the attention of overseas buyers, with many international acquirers seeking businesses that share their sustainability values for a successful cross-border transaction.
• Identifying Cross-Border Synergies: It’s also important for UK business owners to clearly articulate how their company will complement and seamlessly align with an overseas buyer’s global portfolio. This can include providing them access to European clients or adding regulated expertise.

How GS Verde Group Supports Cross-Border Transactions

At GS Verde Group, we understand how important it is for UK business owners in the M&A market to appeal to overseas acquirers in the right way. By successfully executing a cross-border transaction to produce the best possible outcomes, we know that specialist expertise, thorough preparation and international reach is required.

That’s why our in-house team of legal, corporate finance, tax, accountancy, and communications experts work seamlessly under one roof to get the best results for business owners across the UK and Ireland regarding cross-border transactions. Our ‘one team’ approach enables us to provide clients with seamless end-to-end advisory services and help navigate clients through each stage of an acquisition, especially with engaging with international buyers.

Our trustworthy team helps business owners by:

• Mapping international buyers: We use real-time data to identify and engage with overseas buyers and private equity firms that are actively seeking UK acquisition opportunities
• Benchmarking globally: Our corporate finance team measures client valuations against domestic and international multiples to help set realistic and attractive expectations ahead of the deal.
• Showcasing a strong market position: We demonstrate and highlight your business’s strong IP, healthy reputation in the market, reliability and scalability to attract investors.
• Preparing for cross-border due diligence: Our corporate finance team support clients by conducting thorough due diligence to minimise any legal, financial and operational concerns that international buyers may have.
• Managing complexity: Our legal, finance and tax teams work seamlessly together to ensure that cross-border transactions are approached with precision and thoroughness especially regarding foreign legal requirements and multi-jurisdictional tax issues.
• Negotiating international deal terms: To ensure our clients have the best outcome possible and secure terms that protect both value and legacy, our expert team work together to balance cultural alignment with financial results.

Expert Advice from GS Verde Group

At GS Verde Group, we believe that to attract the right overseas buyer for your UK business, early preparation and seeking expert advice is key. As an award-winning multi-discipline advisory firm, we are here to help your UK business achieve long-term success and preserve your legacy through cross-border transactions with clarity and confidence.

Whether you are preparing for an exit or exploring acquisition opportunities to attract overseas investment, our expert team at GS Verde Group will help you navigate the complexities of cross-border M&A and deliver real, effective results.