Urge to merge

The UK’s much-vaunt­ed vac­ci­na­tion roll-out and the government’s grad­ual lift­ing of Covid lock­down restric­tions have boost­ed con­fi­dence among busi­ness­es and investors, as indi­cat­ed by the FTSE 100 index’s steady recov­ery since the end of last year. These mea­sures also encour­aged deal-mak­ing in Q1 2021, as the num­ber of merg­ers and acqui­si­tions hit a 12-month high in March. But what does the future hold? Could spe­cial-pur­pose acqui­si­tion com­pa­nies accel­er­ate growth? And will envi­ron­men­tal, social and cor­po­rate gov­er­nance issues play a more promi­nent role in M&As?