The European consumer transport sector has attracted €9.6 billion ($10.5 billion) in private equity investment across 81 transactions so far this year, matching last year's total number of deals.
Total deal value for 2023 is just short of last year's €10.3 billion, PitchBook data also shows.
However, this year's totals remain well below that of 2021, when the sector saw €13.5 billion of investment across 109 deals.
The biggest deals of the year were announced in just the past two months. In October, Deutsche Bahn agreed to sell Arriva Group, which runs London's red bus routes, to US infrastructure investor I Squared Capital for €1.6 billion. Less than a month later, Scandinavian airline SAS got 13.2 billion Swedish crowns ($1.21 billion) in restructuring finance from an investor group that included Castlelake, Air France-KLM and family office Lind Invest.
Exit activity has been more muted. There are 15 exits on record this year, generating €5.5 billion. This is well below the 2021 peak, when 31 exits from the consumer transport sector generated €16.7 billion. The most significant exit to take place this year came in October, when shipping group MSC agreed to pick up a 50% stake in Global Infrastructure Partners-owned Italian passenger rail operator Italo.
Featured photo by NurPhoto/Getty Images
This article originally appeared on PitchBook News
PE investment in consumer transport rolling steady in Europe
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