Despite continued geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty, 2024 was a year of exceptional momentum for Arma. During the last twelve months we advised on 32 transactions, valued at $58bn. Market share gains have solidified our position as Europe’s pre-eminent advisor to the Digital Economy, while our revenues of over £110m from announced transactions for the first nine months of Arma’s financial year to 31st March 2025 indicate that we will deliver record results for the full twelve months period.
In order to ensure continued future success, we have expanded our senior leadership team through strategic hires and internal promotions. Our Data, EdTech & Media (“DEM”) practice has been relaunched with the arrival of new Partner Laura Maddison to lead this vertical and we have deepened our client coverage capabilities across Continental Europe. Continued strength in our market-leading Software practice led to the promotion of Daniel Fugmann to Partner.
Across our sector teams we have developed alternative liquidity options for clients. We believe that multi-investor transactions, leveraging diverse pools of institutional capital from sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and family offices will become increasingly important for larger transactions in our ecosystem. Proven M&A platforms with vibrant pipelines of actionable opportunities, in particular, continue to be very popular with private equity buyers.
Within Continental Europe we have delivered landmark deals in Germany, advising on the sale of Aareon to TPG and CDPQ, the sale of the Agile RegTech division of Vermeg to Regnology, and the sale of Stonebranch to EMH Partners; in France, with $10bn+ of total transaction value announced in 2024 including landmark transactions such as the sales of Anaqua and Harvest, Téthys Invest and GIC’s minority investment in Septeo and General Atlantic’s minority investment into Kyriba; in the Nordic region, where we have advised on IFS’s public offer for Copperleaf and Zellis’s acquisition of Benify; and in Benelux, advising on the sellside for team.blue, Schuberg Philis, and for select assets of Isabel Group. Whilst continuing to be active across Europe, we have also established a track record of success in North America, having announced our first US-to-US cloud transaction and advised on a Canadian public offer.
Our strategic partnership with Mediobanca passed the one-year milestone and we are now actively working jointly on a variety of projects in Italy and Spain.
Sector highlights
Software remained by some distance Arma’s most active and largest practice, advising on 19 deals valued at $48bn+ in the last twelve months. Uncertainty at the start of the year in the Software M&A market was replaced by recovering optimism in H2, driven in part by improving debt financing markets and IT spend returning. Investor appetite was particularly focused on vertical market leaders with critical workflows providing downside protection – examples include the significant minority investments by GIC and Téthys Invest into Septeo, Anaqua’s acquisition by Nordic Capital and Aareon’s $4.1bn acquisition by TPG and CDPQ. In all of these $ multi-billion transactions, Arma acted on the sellside.
Arma was also active on Software buyside transactions, in particular IFS’s $700m public offer for Copperleaf, EQT’s acquisition of AMCS, and the acquisition of Zellis by Apax and its subsequent acquisition of Benify. Strategic buyer M&A appetite continues to be driven by a desire to improve segment positions and / or expand product offerings to clients, themes that were evident in the sales of Carlyle-owned 1E to German-listed Teamviewer and Dext to Iris.
Cloud and Communications deal volumes picked up markedly as the interest rate cycle peaked, confidence returned in the US and there was a re-acceleration of hyper-scaler growth. Growth in cloud-native digital transformation services, coupled with Data and AI, were recurrent themes behind our deals, including most notably the sale of Schuberg Philis to Bridgepoint. Our position in the SMB digitisation ecosystem was further strengthened acting for team.blue in securing significant minority investments from CPP Investments and Sofina, valuing the business at $5.2bn. Other sector transactions during the year included the sale of Options to Vitruvian, the acquisition of Focus Group by Hg and the sale of Mission Cloud Services to listed US acquiror, CDW.
Our FinTech vertical delivered another strong performance in an active sector. The ongoing digitisation of financial services and the potential for internationalisation of M&A roll-up platforms in a fragmented landscape continued to attract PE buyers (e.g. TA and Montagu, who acquired Harvest, a portfolio company of Five Arrows). Regulatory reporting also remains a strong focus for investors, where we acted for Vermeg on the sale of its Agile RegTech division to Nordic Capital-owned Regnology. During the year we also acted for Isabel Group on the complex carve out of its Workflow Automation and Office of the CFO business to Wolters Kluwer.
ESG transparency was a key theme in our Data, EdTech & Media franchise, where we acted for General Atlantic on its acquisition of GRESB, a sustainability and benchmark provider for the real estate industry. Certification also remains a very relevant focus for investors, and we advised CGE and Five Arrows on the acquisition of Intact, which digitises complex workflows in the certification process. We expect to see increasing activity at the intersection of data, ESG and compliance.
Private Capital fundraising conditions remained challenging in general as investors started to come to terms with new valuation down-rounds. Notwithstanding this, we were able to raise $170m for repeat client Rohlik from the EBRD, EIB and existing investors (Index Ventures, Quadrille, Sofina and TCF Capital). We also raised growth investment capital for Planity at the start of the year from Infravia, Revaia, Crédit Mutuel and Bpifrance to accelerate its European expansion, while in the media and internet sector we raised $52m of growth capital for Carwow in a series E round from Bessemer Venture Partners and existing investors, Accel, Balderton, Episode 1 and Vitruvian.
Conclusion
We are excited by the opportunities that lie ahead in 2025 and will continue to evolve our strategy to match the scale of our ambitions and expected sector developments. The Digital Economy is set for continued transformation, fuelled by long-term trends in AI, digital innovation, and sustainability, which will power the next phase of investment and deal activity. Our ability to identify and capitalise on these evolving trends ensures that we are uniquely positioned to support our clients in their next chapter of growth.
Our outstanding year has been made possible by the trust of our valued clients and the dedication of our outstanding team, as well as our relentless and uncompromised focus on the Digital Economy. We remain committed to delivering exceptional results, continuing to serve as trusted, long-term advisors to the sector. We are grateful that we continue to secure repeat business from longstanding clients, a clear testament to our ability to deliver best-in-class results.
We wish you and your loved ones a wonderful holiday season.