ID's November M&A Recap: Another Huge Month

An ongoing myriad of supply chain issues hasn't slowed down M&A activity in the industrial supply market.

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Where in the world has 2021 gone? While in some ways it feels like we've been in this COVID-19 pandemic forever, it's also hard to believe we've already started the final month of the year.

Having rebounded from the worst of the pandemic, M&A deal activity in the industrial supply sector moved along at a solid pace this past summer, as I tracked 19 deals in June, 22 in July and 18 in August before September surged to 32 such items in what was perhaps the busiest M&A month I've seen in my 6-plus years here at Industrial Distribution.

But October was much slower, as I saw only 16 deals announced — exactly half of September — leading me to wonder if this market was headed back to a conservative stretch through the rest of 2021's fourth quarter.

Nope.

November came back with a vengeance, as I tracked 27 deals despite an ongoing myriad of supply chain issues for seemingly everyone in this space — a persisting labor crisis, a semiconductor shortage (which is showing signs of improving), and other material shortages causing historically high prices in many markets. Even with those factors, industrial distributors and manufacturers appear to still be highly proactive in spending capital to grow via acquisitions.

These news items include announcements of completed or pending acquisitions impacting distributors relevant to the industrial products space in North America.

Here's what we covered in November, in reverse chronological order:

Of course, despite our best efforts, there’s always relevant deals announced that either weren’t on our radar, or that weren’t made public. But, this list should provide a good idea of most M&A activity applicable to the industrial supply market.

As for December, the holidays naturally make it one of the slowest M&A months of the year, so I'm expecting this month's deals count to be considerably lower than November's, but the first half of the month figures to still be pretty active. I'm expecting January to be a much stronger month.

See our October M&A recap here

See our September M&A recap here

See our August M&A recap here

If your company has news to share, M&A or otherwise, contact me at at [email protected].

As always, the best way to stay on top of industrial supply M&A news is to make sure you're subscribed to ID's free daily e-newsletter.

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