The corporate department at Cobbetts is expecting international trade buyers and creative private equity firms to continue to dominate the M&A market for the next six months, after completing deals worth in excess of £1bn in the first half of its financial year.

Corporate is one of the firm’s fastest-growing areas, buoyed by its strong track record in global public markets and robust international links.

Compared with the previous year, the department has seen an increased volume of transactional work, with a number of high value deals.

Deals in the period included the £75m cash acquisition of Tocris Holdings by US biotechnology business Techne Corporate, the acquisition of Hessle Fork Trucks by investment group CorpAcq, the management buy-out of Wolverhampton’s Acenta Steel Limited, and  the acquisition of mobile telecoms provider, Totility, by telecoms and data services company, Maintel Holdings plc.

Sean Fitzgerald, national head of Cobbetts’ corporate team, said: “The performance of the corporate team in the first half has been exceptional against the economic backdrop. Our expertise in international corporate advisory, links with private equity firms and track record in global public markets work have stood us in good stead in what remains a challenging marketplace for transactions.

“Our order book for the second half of the year is strong, which would indicate that we are likely to see an even busier M&A market than we have over the last six months. The ongoing turbulence in the Eurozone will, of course, have an impact. But with international buyers still keen to gain strong footholds in Europe and so many private equity firms sitting on cash that must be invested, we are optimistic that deal flow will continue to grow as we move into 2012.”