Publications

In­cor­por­at­ing ESG KPIs in­to dir­ect­ors’ re­mu­ner­a­tion The ur­gent need to place sus­tain­ab­il­ity at the heart of com­pany strategy is in­ex­tric­ably linked to in­cent­ives provided to its dir­ect­ors and em­ploy­ees. This Ex­pert Guide aims to provide prac­tic­al in­sights in­to key mar­ket prac­tices and trends aimed at in­cor­por­at­ing sus­tain­ab­il­ity and/or En­vir­on­ment­al, So­cial and Gov­ernance (“ESG”) KPIs in­to dir­ect­ors’ re­mu­ner­a­tion.The reg­u­la­tions and re­com­mend­a­tions on ESG-re­lated re­mu­ner­a­tion vary con­sid­er­ably from sec­tor to sec­tor and from coun­try to coun­try. The trend is, how­ever, un­doubtedly to­wards provid­ing dir­ect­ors (and in some cases seni­or/mid-level man­agers) with an in­cent­ive to com­mit to ESG ob­ject­ives de­signed to sup­port and pro­mote ef­fect­ive man­age­ment of sus­tain­ab­il­ity risks.We hope this guide provides the prac­tic­al roadmap you need to fur­ther your busi­ness’s sound re­mu­ner­a­tion prac­tices – wherever in the world you need to op­er­ate. For fur­ther leg­al sup­port and ad­vice, get in touch with your reg­u­lar CMS con­tact or email us at em­ploy­ment@cmsleg­al.com.

The year 2022 star­ted with vari­ous chal­lenges, in­clud­ing rising in­fla­tion and en­ergy prices. Then the Rus­si­an in­va­sion of Ukraine ad­ded yet an­oth­er one. Non­ethe­less, the M&A mar­ket in emer­ging European coun­tries proved to be ex­tremely re­si­li­ent. The re­gion saw M&A activ­ity main­tain a steady pace, though deal val­ues were not­ably lower. Also, vari­ations could be ob­served across ter­rit­or­ies and sec­tors. While 2022 brought a unique set of chal­lenges, deal­mak­ing largely com­pared fa­vour­ably to pre-pan­dem­ic levels.Wel­come to the 2022/23 edi­tion of the Emer­ging Europe re­port.

The year 2022 star­ted with vari­ous chal­lenges, in­clud­ing rising in­fla­tion and en­ergy prices. Then the Rus­si­an in­va­sion of Ukraine ad­ded yet an­oth­er one. Non­ethe­less, the M&A mar­ket in emer­ging European coun­tries proved to be ex­tremely re­si­li­ent. The re­gion saw M&A activ­ity main­tain a steady pace, though deal val­ues were not­ably lower. Also, vari­ations could be ob­served across ter­rit­or­ies and sec­tors. While 2022 brought a unique set of chal­lenges, deal­mak­ing largely com­pared fa­vour­ably to pre-pan­dem­ic levels.Wel­come to the 2022/23 edi­tion of the Emer­ging Europe re­port.

We are pleased to share with you the 2023 edi­tion of the European M&A Out­look pub­lished by CMS in as­so­ci­ation with Mer­ger­mar­ket.

Chan­ging tech, chan­ging risks

The CMS Cor­por­ate/M&A Group is pleased to launch the four­teenth edi­tion of the European M&A Study

The aim of this year's event is to cel­eb­rate the achieve­ments of wo­men and show how wo­men's lead­er­ship is sup­por­ted by mod­ern or­gan­isa­tions and helps them thrive.Mod­er­ated dis­cus­sion by Döne Yalçın with our guest speak­ers:Maimuna Moss­er, Coun­try Com­mer­cial Man­ager, IKEA Aus­tria Gmb­H­Heike Mensi-Klar­bach, Head of Group People and Or­gan­isa­tion­al In­nov­a­tion bei Raif­feis­en Bank In­ter­na­tion­al AGLamia Fakhr, Cor­por­ate Af­fairs Dir­ect­or, MEN­AT, Kel­logg Com­pany of Great Bri­tain Ltd.

While world lead­ers have been gath­er­ing for COP meet­ings for dec­ades, what made COP26 per­haps par­tic­u­larly not­able is that the private sec­tor also gathered in force, and with a com­mit­ment and de­term­in­a­tion to be a key driver in the de­car­bon­isa­tion of the world’s eco­nom­ies.  In pre­vi­ous years, there have been mur­mur­ings from vari­ous cor­por­ates that to make so­cial or en­vir­on­ment­ally driv­en in­vest­ment de­cisions may not align with their fi­du­ciary duty to act in the in­terests of share­hold­ers. As share­hold­er act­iv­ism has driv­en the de­bate in­to board­rooms from above, this at­ti­tude is rap­idly re­vers­ing dir­ec­tion. While re­turns are gen­er­ally seen as lower in the clean sec­tor com­pared to, say, the oil & gas sec­tor, be­ing in­ves­ted in the green trans­ition is in­creas­ingly seen as a key route to pre­serving and pro­tect­ing share­hold­er value. At the same time, vol­un­tary and man­dat­ory cli­mate re­lated dis­clos­ures are align­ing the drivers for in­vestors across the board so that cap­it­al is in­creas­ingly driv­en by the met­rics they pro­duce.  This is be­ing re­flec­ted in, among oth­er things, the plum­met­ing cost of cap­it­al for green in­vest­ments. At the same time high car­bon in­tens­ive in­vest­ments, such as coal based pro­jects and busi­nesses, are strug­gling to se­cure fund­ing, with many fa­cing in­solv­ency. In­vest­ments in the en­ergy trans­ition, a key part of the green trans­ition, will prin­cip­ally take the form of M&A. The out­come of COP26 and the mo­mentum it has gen­er­ated means that European deal­makers in the en­ergy sec­tor will be even busier in 2022. Europe leads the world in the en­ergy trans­ition and the race to net zero is driv­ing near-re­cord levels of deal­mak­ing – not­ably in wind and sol­ar photo­vol­ta­ic gen­er­a­tion.At the same time, the en­ergy trans­ition is both ex­pand­ing and frag­ment­ing the en­ergy sec­tor. For many, it has tra­di­tion­ally been fo­cused on en­ergy gen­er­a­tion. The trans­ition is bring­ing to the fore less vis­ible tech­no­lo­gies. Everything from tra­di­tion­al hy­dro­power to grid-scale bat­ter­ies, elec­tri­fic­a­tion of trans­port and hy­dro­gen. It is also bring­ing in­to the mix sec­tors that have not tra­di­tion­ally been fo­cused on en­ergy, such as in­dus­tri­al de­car­bon­isa­tion, ship­ping and min­ing for the nat­ur­al re­sources needed for the en­ergy trans­ition. In par­al­lel with this, there is a huge and grow­ing story around en­ergy trans­mis­sion and dis­tri­bu­tion. Elec­tri­city net­works will need to ex­pand massively to fa­cil­it­ate elec­tri­fic­a­tion and new tech­no­lo­gies. They are also be­com­ing smarter with the use of di­git­al tech­no­logy to op­tim­ise the way power is dis­trib­uted, traded and con­sumed. Fur­ther, new types of net­works may provide in­vest­ment op­por­tun­it­ies for those look­ing for stable long term as­sets, such as hy­dro­gen and car­bon net­works.Against this back­ground, tra­di­tion­al fossil fuel-based play­ers are de­car­bon­ising their op­er­a­tions. For the oil and gas ma­jors, this means ac­quir­ing or sig­ni­fic­antly en­han­cing their cap­ab­il­it­ies in re­new­ables, in­clud­ing wind, sol­ar and hy­dro­gen, while sim­ul­tan­eously di­vest­ing se­lec­ted car­bon-in­tens­ive as­sets in re­sponse to mount­ing ESG pres­sures. This may be one of the reas­ons why 50% of re­spond­ents in our study point to dis­tress-driv­en deals as a top sell-side driver.Change is en­dem­ic in the en­ergy sec­tor, but the cur­rent trans­ition makes the years since lib­er­al­isa­tion of en­ergy mar­kets in the late 1980s seem al­most steady-state in com­par­is­on. Des­pite the mo­mentum and push for cap­it­al to be in­ves­ted in the en­ergy trans­ition, there re­main obstacles, not least the lim­ited pipeline of good qual­ity in­vest­ment op­por­tun­it­ies, con­tinu­ing con­cerns over lock­downs and COV­ID-19 vari­ants, fin­an­cing dif­fi­culties arising from po­ten­tially un­stable long term rev­en­ue streams and di­min­ish­ing rates of re­turn. Not­with­stand­ing these chal­lenges, our study finds that en­ergy sec­tor M&A will in­creas­ingly be an en­gine driv­ing cap­it­al in­to pro­pos­i­tions that match so­cial and polit­ic­al am­bi­tions for the green trans­ition. Key find­ings  En­ergy re­mains a premi­um as­set class for most in­sti­tu­tion­al in­vestors, with its per­form­ance dur­ing the pan­dem­ic and im­petus from COP26 fur­ther en­han­cing its at­tract­ive­ness75% of en­ergy com­pan­ies are con­sid­er­ing an ac­quis­i­tion and/or di­vest­ment in 2022Along­side premi­um as­sets, in some sub­sect­ors there are un­der­val­ued tar­gets driv­ing buy-side activ­ity, with sellers shed­ding dis­tressed as­sets as the sec­tor shifts in re­sponse to the en­ergy trans­ition45% think COV­ID-19 will be a ma­jor M&A obstacle in 2022, but this re­mains a flu­id situ­ation that can change rap­idly

Fol­low­ing glob­al trends, the M&A mar­ket in emer­ging Europe surged in 2021— more money was spent on ac­quis­i­tions and in­vest­ments than in any of the pre­vi­ous sev­en years. After a re­l­at­ively poor show­ing in 2020, trans­ac­tion volume also bounced back to pre-pan­dem­ic levels. Not only did dir­ect ac­quis­i­tions and in­vest­ments fare well, but stock mar­ket list­ings also reached un­pre­ced­en­ted levels. Has the M&A mar­ket in emer­ging Europe scaled new heights?Wel­come to the 2021/22 edi­tion of the Emer­ging Europe re­port.

Key em­ploy­ment is­sues to be aware of in­ter­na­tion­ally