Foreign buyers are taking over British companies at a record rate
Key Points
- Overseas bidders accounted for 86% of all UK takeover activity by value in the first half of 2026, an all-time high.
- Offers for UK-listed companies passed $231 billion by the start of July, around £171 billion, up 210% year-on-year.
- US buyers made more than half of the foreign bids, with Intertek, Schroders, Tate & Lyle and Rotork among the targets.
- Average takeover premiums have risen to around 43%, handing one-off gains to the pension and tracker funds that own the shares.
- London hosted seven flotations in the first half of the year, raising £577 million, while more than 30 companies left or prepared to leave the main market.
Overseas bidders accounted for 86% of all UK takeover activity by value in the first half of 2026, up from 75% at the same point last year and the highest share on record.
Offers for UK-listed companies passed $231 billion by the start of July, around £171 billion, a rise of 210% on the same point in 2025. Foreign takeovers made up more than $197 billion of that figure, the highest year-to-date total since records began in 1980, according to LSEG data. US bidders accounted for more than half of the foreign offers.
- Intertek’s board agreed a £9.4 billion takeover by private equity group EQT in June, the largest private equity deal for a UK company since the 2007 buyout of Alliance Boots.
- Nuveen has offered £9.9 billion for asset manager Schroders
- US-listed Ingredion has bid £2.7 billion for Tate & Lyle.
- Switzerland’s ABB agreed a £4.1 billion deal for FTSE 250 engineer Rotork at a 73% premium.
- US buyers took Gooch & Housego for £346 million and pawnbroker Ramsdens for £232 million.
- Budget airline easyJet has gone to American private markets group Apollo.
- Industrials group Bodycote has disclosed near-identical bids from buyout firms CVC and Veritas.
Buyers have paid an average premium of around 43% to the undisturbed share price across 36 live or completed UK deals this year, up from 40% last year, on AJ Bell figures.
Law firm Skadden recorded 25 firm offers under the Takeover Code in the first half of the year, worth roughly £35.4 billion, alongside 34 possible offers. Only five of those firm offers targeted companies valued above £1 billion, against 17 in 2024 and 11 in 2025.
The larger headline totals count announced and possible offers across all UK targets rather than completed deals for listed companies.
What it means for savers
Most people hold these companies through pensions, ISAs and tracker funds rather than directly, and few savers would recognise names such as Intertek or Bodycote. A takeover premium delivers a one-off gain to those funds when a deal completes. The pool of UK companies available to invest in then shrinks.
The FTSE All Share has lost 11% of its constituents over five years, and the All Share and AIM All Share have almost 300 fewer companies between them than five years ago.
AIM has taken much of that hit and buyers have acquired 767 AIM-listed companies over the past 20 years, accounting for 36% of the 2,129 delistings in that period, research by accountancy firm UHY Hacker Young found. AIM listed 1,694 companies at the end of 2007 and now lists 612.
New listings have not filled the gap as London hosted just seven flotations in the first half of 2026, raising £577 million, of which a single Uzbek state investment fund provided £511 million.
More than 30 companies have already left or are poised to leave London’s main market this year, and the Uzbek fund is the only notable IPO of 2026 so far.
