RaymondsIndex

Two deals landed this week that share almost nothing on the surface — and everything underneath. In South Korea, Harim Group, the country's largest poultry processor, was named preferred bidder for Homeplus Express, a supermarket chain operating under court-led restructuring. The price is reported at around ₩300 billion ($203 million). The strategic logic: Harim has spent decades building backward integration from chicken farms through feed mills and processing plants. Homeplus Express — with its 300+ locations — would finally close the loop at the consumer end. Farm to fork, literally. On the same week, in a deal twelve times larger, India's Sun Pharma agreed to acquire US-listed Organon for $11.75 billion in an all-cash transaction. Organon — spun off from Merck in 2021 — specialises in women's health and biosimilars. Sun Pharma is primarily a generics powerhouse. The combined company would generate approximately $12.4 billion in revenues and rank among the top 25 phar...

On April 16, 2026, Schroders plc shareholders voted 99.9% in favour of a £9.9 billion ($13.4 billion) acquisition by Nuveen, LLC. The deal, announced in February, would end 222 years of independence for Britain's largest standalone fund manager and create a combined investment group managing approximately $2.5 trillion in assets. Fourteen days later, on April 30, the sale of K Shipbuilding — a mid-tier South Korean shipyard valued at approximately 500 billion won ($364 million) — hit a snag. Creditors and sellers delayed naming a preferred bidder to mid-May, questioning whether the sole remaining consortium can actually operate the asset it wants to buy. Two deals. One week apart. A paradox that cuts to the heart of how M&A processes succeed or fail. Why Schroders Closed Fast The Schroders-Nuveen deal moved with unusual speed — from announcement to shareholder approval in roughly ten weeks — because structural commitments were made early and made public. Nuveen committe...

When Forvia SE announced on April 27, 2026 that it would sell its Interiors Business Group to Apollo-managed funds for €1.82 billion, the headlines focused on the price. A clean carve-out. A strategic pivot. €1 billion in net debt reduction for Forvia. A standalone automotive interiors company for Apollo. What the headlines rarely capture is what happens next — and why "next" is where most carve-outs succeed or fail. The Scale of What's Being Moved The Forvia Interiors unit is not a startup. It is one of the world's largest automotive interior suppliers: approximately €4.8 billion in 2025 consolidated revenue, 59 production sites, 8 R&D centres, 31,000 employees across 19 countries. In 2025, it represented roughly 18% of Forvia's total revenue. Carving out an entity of this scale is fundamentally different from a standard acquisition. In a conventional deal, the buyer acquires an already-standing legal entity with its own ERP, its own contracts, its own HR...

Private equity's relationship with time is rarely discussed honestly. This week, two signals emerged from Asian deal markets that deserve to be read together. Orchestra Private Equity completed the sale of KFC Korea to The Carlyle Group for approximately ₩200 billion ($135 million) — exiting roughly three years after acquisition. In Korea's PE ecosystem, a clean three-year exit is a mark of execution discipline. It implies a thesis that held, a portfolio company that was prepared, and a buyer who arrived with conviction. Across the Japan Strait, something less visible but equally significant is happening. Japan's corporate bond market just posted a record: ¥15.8 trillion ($99 billion) in yen-denominated bond issuance in the fiscal year ended March 2026, up 5% year-on-year and the highest on record. In March alone, issuance surged 94% compared to the same period last year — more than four times faster than global corporate bond markets combined. The primary driver, acc...

Two pieces of news landed within 24 hours of each other this week — and taken together, they represent something more than a market update. On April 27, 2026, KED Global reported that Deloitte forecasts South Korea’s M&A market will approach $70 billion in 2026, citing supply chain consolidation and AI technology acquisition as the primary drivers. Deal values grew double digits in 2025 versus the prior year. The Korean market, having navigated a year of political uncertainty and global tariff pressure, is showing remarkable resilience. On April 28, Nikkei Asia reported that Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) will update its M&A guidance to formally allow target companies to weigh economic security considerations and the views of employees and business partners — not just financial returns to shareholders — when evaluating acquisition proposals. This is not a minor amendment. Japan’s Q1 2026 M&A deal value reached $...