M&A consultancy BTD expands into Asia with new office in Hong Kong

The UK-based M&A consultancy BTD has expanded into Asia with a new office in Hong Kong, joining the firm’s international bureaus in Europe, the US and Australia.

As a reflection of the increasing demand for its services in the region, UK-based merger & acquisitions specialists BTD have established a new office in Hong Kong, adding to the firm’s primary locations in London, Frankfurt, Boston and Sydney.

The regional entry has been motivated by healthy movement in the local M&A domain, where, according to data from M&A analysts Mergermarket, M&A activity in the Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) increased in value by 4.8 percent last year to a combined worth of $673.5 billion through 3,750 transactions – against a 3.2 percent dip and $3.5 trillion value globally.

BTD founder and Managing Partner Carlos Keener, who established the firm in 2001 after a stint with Accenture as a Senior Manager in Corporate Strategy providing M&A and Integration support for clients, commented; “We are pleased with the increasing recognition of the importance of, and demand for, our services in Asia as the M&A market matures in the region.”

Keener continued, “We’re clearly seeing that the early rush of outbound deals ‘of any kind, at any price’ is giving way to a more considered, strategic perspective and mature approach to issues such as post-close integration, cultural and other cross-border considerations, and long-term value creation. This is certainly an exciting time for us and we look forward to working with our clients in future.”

BTD – short for Beyond the Deal – prides itself on providing longer-term business value for clients through frank advisory services across the full M&A life-cycle, with the firm boasting multinationals such Amadeus, Unilever, Coca-Cola, and GlaxoSmithKline among a list of over 100 clients across every major sector around the globe.

In Asia, the M&A consulting firm will be competing with the finance arms of the well-established Big Four – KPMG, PwC, Deloitte and EY – along with international sector players with an Asia presence, such as AlixPartners (Hong Kong, Seoul and Shanghai), Drake Star Partners (Tokyo), and Alvarez & Marsal, the latter which opened its fifth Asian office in Singapore in 2016.