Private takeovers to top £5bn before CGT change

Takeovers of private equity-backed British firms are forecast to exceed £5bn in the first three months of this year, as company owners flock to offload their businesses to avoid the new capital gains tax rules.

Despite the credit crunch making borrowing more expensive, the volume of deals appears destined to almost double the volume of the last three months of last year, when deals trickled to £2.9bn, according to figures compiled by the Centre for Management Buy-Out Research at Nottingham University.

Tony Lamb, co-head of Barclays Private Equity, which helped to put the research together, told The Guardian UK buyout activity so far in 2008 compared well with previous years.

‘It remains to be seen whether this will continue into the rest of the year, or whether this will prove to be a false dawn because the CGT changes have pulled forward deal flow from later in the year.’

Further reading:

HMRC backlog holds up co sales pre-CGT change

Read story in The Guardian