Britain for Sale: US on buying spree in UK2 Jul 2025 17:44
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Britain for Sale: KKR leads a wave of US buyers bargain-hunting in London
Published: 11:05 02 Jul 2025 BST
Written by: Ian Lyall
Spectris PLC - Britain for Sale: KKR leads a wave of US buyers bargain-hunting in London
In the late 1980s, KKR made its name as the most feared corporate raider in America, immortalised in the book Barbarians at the Gate.
That legendary deal, a hostile, record-breaking takeover of RJR Nabisco, became symbolic of an era when private equity investors ruthlessly stormed company boardrooms, reshaping entire industries.
Nearly four decades later, KKR is again taking up that mantle, but this time the battleground is Britain.
On the very morning that investment bank Peel Hunt published research highlighting a surge of takeover activity in the UK, KKR dramatically proved the point by clinching a £4.1 billion deal to buy Spectris PLC (LSE:SXS), the FTSE 250-listed industrial technology group.
Very active
Spectris is the third deal this year for which KKR is a named bidder, vividly underlining the broking and banking group's key message: the barbarians, led once again by private equity, are very much at the gates of corporate Britain.
Yet Spectris is merely the tip of the iceberg. Peel's analysis reveals a far broader trend: the UK mergers and acquisitions market is experiencing its busiest period in years.
On average, two new takeover bids are surfacing every week, with American investors like KKR accounting for more than a quarter of them. It seems Britain has become a favourite hunting ground, full of undervalued companies ripe for takeover.
Departing from the script
But the real action isn’t necessarily where headlines might suggest.
While big deals like Spectris attract attention, Peel Hunt points out that 97% of all firm offers in the first half of 2025 have targeted mid-sized UK companies valued at less than £2 billion.
This mid-market focus suggests that while KKR’s eye-catching acquisitions grab attention, the barbarians (and their imitators) are systematically sweeping through smaller, strategically valuable businesses across the country.
Why now? The simple answer is price. UK companies have suffered years of depressed share prices, thanks to lingering uncertainty from Brexit, stubbornly high inflation, and sluggish economic growth.
Brits the slowest
Ironically, British investors themselves have been slowest to appreciate the value hiding in plain sight. American private equity groups, armed with ample cash and optimism about economic recovery, have had no such hesitation.
Yet this latest wave of takeovers carries a significant difference from the hostile, cash-driven raids of the past.
Increasingly, deals involve both cash and shares, an indication that buyers and sellers are thinking strategically rather than seekin
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