Friday, July 24, 2026 · Covering: Mon–Fri this week
TL;DR
This was a European strategic-M&A week: OCS agreed to take UK facilities giant Mitie private for £3.1B, Vår Energi is merging with BlueNord to create Europe's largest independent oil & gas producer, and Iberdrola is buying 80% of Finland's main power grid at a ~€5B enterprise value — a services roll-up, an upstream consolidation, and a regulated-infrastructure buy, all in one week. Markets went risk-off: the S&P 500 fell ~1.2% Thursday as Alphabet dropped 7% and Tesla 14% after earnings, with Alphabet's raised AI capex reviving worries about how much the hyperscalers are spending. The Fed entered its pre-meeting blackout ahead of the July 28–29 FOMC, so with no central-bank guidance the tape is trading purely on corporate results and rising oil.
TOP 3 DEALS
DEAL 01
Industrials / Business Services
EQUITY VALUE~£3.1B (~$4.2B); 218.5p/share cash
STRUCTURERecommended all-cash take-private; delists from LSE
BUY-SIDE ADVISORSLazard (lead), Barclays, RBC Capital Markets
SELL-SIDE ADVISORSArdea Partners (lead / Rule 3), Peel Hunt
Private-equity-backed OCS is buying its larger rival Mitie — both UK facilities-management firms that run cleaning, security and maintenance for offices and public buildings — to create an ~£8.5B-revenue group. It's a consolidation play: combine two low-margin services businesses and take out overlapping overhead. AOL/Reuters ↗
Why it matters for recruiting: A clean UK take-private where a smaller PE-backed player swallows a bigger listed rival — worth being able to explain how that's financed. Note the "Rule 3 adviser" tag on Ardea: under the UK Takeover Code, the target's board must get independent advice that the terms are fair, and that banker signs the fairness view. Also a textbook services roll-up, where the entire thesis is cost synergies, not growth — so in a model you'd focus on realizable overhead cuts and integration risk.
DEAL 02
Energy / Upstream
DEAL VALUENkr12.84B (~$1.33B) cash-and-stock
STRUCTUREMerger; creates Europe's largest independent O&G producer; close ~YE26
BUY-SIDE ADVISORSSB1 Markets, Barclays (Schjødt — legal)
SELL-SIDE ADVISORSJefferies (Std Chartered — fairness opinion)
Norway's Vår Energi is absorbing rival BlueNord to become the biggest independent oil & gas producer in Europe — "independent" meaning not one of the supermajors like Shell or BP. Paying partly in stock lets BlueNord holders keep upside in the combined company while Vår conserves cash for the drilling program. Offshore Technology ↗
Why it matters for recruiting: Upstream energy has its own valuation language — you value producers on reserves and production (metrics like EV per barrel of proved reserves, or NAV of the fields) rather than EBITDA multiples, because the asset is a depleting resource. This is also a good cash-and-stock consideration example: be ready to explain why a seller might prefer stock (tax deferral, continued upside) versus cash (certainty), and how that choice shifts risk between the two sides.
DEAL 03
Energy / Regulated Infrastructure
VALUE€2B (~$2.3B) for 80% equity; ~€5B EV incl. debt
STRUCTUREMajority stake purchase; close ~Q1 2027 pending approvals
BUY-SIDE ADVISORSAdvisors TBD (not disclosed)
SELL-SIDE ADVISORSAdvisors TBD (not disclosed)
Spanish utility Iberdrola is buying control of Caruna, the company that owns and operates Finland's largest electricity distribution grid — the poles and wires that deliver power to homes. Regulated grids are prized because their revenue is set by a regulator and grows predictably, which is exactly what a big utility wants to fund with cheap debt. Bloomberg ↗
Why it matters for recruiting: The clearest example this week of the equity value vs. enterprise value bridge that interviewers love: €2B buys 80% of the equity, but the enterprise value is ~€5B once you add the grid's substantial debt. Regulated infrastructure is also the model asset for infra funds and utilities — low risk, leveraged heavily, valued on regulated asset base (RAB) rather than growth. Good vocabulary to have if power & utilities or infrastructure coverage comes up.
SECTOR SIGNAL
DEFENSE / AEROSPACE
Farnborough Airshow produced a BAE Systems–Boeing–Saab partnership and a wave of orders — airshows are where commercial-aerospace order books (and the financing behind them) get set for the year. PrivSource ↗
TECH / TMT
Alphabet raised its AI capex guidance on earnings, sending the stock down 7% — the "how much are hyperscalers spending, and when does it pay off" debate is now the single biggest swing factor in equities. CNBC ↗
INDUSTRIALS
The OCS/Mitie tie-up caps a busy stretch of UK business-services consolidation, as PE-backed platforms buy scale in low-margin outsourcing where the only lever is cost. Traders Union ↗
ENERGY / POWER
Two European energy deals in one week (Vår/BlueNord upstream, Iberdrola/Caruna grid) plus surging oil on Middle East tension — energy is quietly the most active corner of the market right now. Rigzone ↗
M&A / LEVERAGED FINANCE
Zooming out: tech M&A alone hit ~$472B in the first five months of 2026, up 48% year-over-year, with technology capturing 89% of TMT deal value and 15 of 16 announced megadeals. The megadeal is back, and financing is not the constraint — high-yield issuance is being absorbed easily. The open question is whether the equity-market wobble (Alphabet/Tesla) and rising oil cool the animal spirits that a record deal pipeline depends on. Value Add VC ↗ PwC ↗
MARKET TONE
Risk-off on Big Tech earnings. S&P 500 −1.21% to 7,408, Nasdaq −2.15%, Dow −0.97% Thursday, dragged by Alphabet (−7%) and Tesla (−14%) after their prints. CNBC ↗
AI capex is the fault line. Alphabet beat but raised spending guidance; the market punished it, signaling investors now want returns on AI investment, not just bigger budgets.
Fed in blackout. No Fed-speak ahead of the July 28–29 FOMC, so the tape is trading on earnings and the ECB's tone rather than rate hints. A hold is still the base case for the rest of 2026. CNBC ↗
Oil is climbing on geopolitics. Middle East escalation pushed crude higher again, complicating the disinflation narrative and keeping energy the market's relative winner.
Earnings breadth is genuinely strong. Beneath the mega-cap volatility, S&P 500 profit growth is tracking >20% — a reminder the selloff is about valuation and guidance, not deteriorating fundamentals.
INTERVIEW ANGLE
TOPIC: WHY THE SAME "DEAL SIZE" CAN MEAN VERY DIFFERENT THINGS
This week handed you a perfect teaching set on one of the most common technical stumbles: confusing equity value with enterprise value. Interviewers ask it constantly because it separates people who memorized formulas from people who understand what a deal actually costs.
Run the three deals side by side:
Iberdrola / Caruna. €2B buys 80% of the equity, but enterprise value is ~€5B once you add the grid's debt and gross up for the 20% not bought. The headline number understates the true size ~2.5x.
OCS / Mitie. A clean per-share cash price (218.5p) — so equity value is straightforward, but you'd still add Mitie's net debt to get to the EV the buyer is really financing.
Vår / BlueNord. Cash-and-stock, so "deal value" itself is fuzzy — the stock portion's value floats with Vår's share price until close.
The one-line rule: equity value is what shareholders receive; enterprise value is what it costs to own the whole business, capital structure included. Enterprise value = equity value + net debt + minority interest + preferred − cash. You buy the equity, but you inherit the debt.
How to bring it up: "The Iberdrola–Caruna deal is a clean example of why headline deal size can mislead — €2B for 80% of the equity, but roughly €5B enterprise value once you load in the grid's debt. Regulated utilities carry a lot of leverage because the cash flows are so predictable, so the equity check is a small slice of what you're actually acquiring." (Being able to walk EV ↔ equity value both directions, unprompted, is one of the highest-ROI things to have automatic before a superday.)