Clifford Chance

Coronavirus: Making deals in a volatile market

10 March 2020

Coronavirus (Covid-19) is likely to lead to a period of volatility and uncertainty in global and domestic markets, making settling valuation and pricing, and achieving deal certainty in M&A transactions, more challenging. Sellers are likely to have a valuation outlook that assumes a short period of uncertainty; Buyers may worry about an extended or deep period of uncertainty.

In this briefing, we look at some of the techniques within an M&A process that are relevant to the London market and may be used by both sides to bridge a valuation gap or by a Buyer to retain some flexibility to walk away if the target business is more badly affected than expected.

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