Investing in CEE: Inbound M&A report 2025/2026

• M&A in Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) is surging despite severe geopolitical headwinds, with record intraregional investment and ever-improving economic fundamentals pointing towards continued growth in the year ahead
• 1,312 transactions were registered in the region in 2025
• The aggregate value of disclosed M&A activity totalled €42.5bn

Forvis Mazars, the international leader in audit and assurance, tax and advisory services, releases its annual CEE M&A report, prepared in association with Mergermarket. The findings reveal that M&A activity in the CEE region did relatively well in 2025 in terms of overall disclosed deal value, though a decline in transaction volume demonstrates the significant geopolitical headwinds and challenging global market conditions it faced.

The study, Investing in CEE: Inbound M&A report 2025/2026, offers an overview of M&A activity in the region in 2025 and looks ahead to the challenges and opportunities in the coming months.

Overall, the CEE region saw 1,312 transactions in 2025, with a combined value of €42.5bn. Though the former represents a 9% year-on-year decline, deal value surged by 36% compared to 2024.

“2025 was a year of steady progress”, mentioned Andrija Garofulić, CEE Financial Advisory Co-Lead and Partner, Forvis Mazars in the Adria subregion. “Despite the region-wide dip in volume, the total value of announced transactions shows how acquirers shifted their focus to premium assets. This pattern was by no means unique to CEE: 2025 was a year in which large-cap deals were the dominant feature of M&A markets all over the world.”

Another key trend was the rise of intraregional M&A. The share of aggregate value generated by inbound deals led by acquirers within CEE soared to its highest level on record in 2025, accounting for 21% of aggregate value.

“We are seeing more and more strategic and financial investors expanding beyond their national borders,” said Răzvan Butucaru, Partner, Financial Services & Advisory Leader, Forvis Mazars in Romania. “The market is maturing, and regional investors are becoming bolder.”

The pattern of dealmaking in the private equity (PE) arena mirrored that of the wider M&A market in 2025, with volume and value pulling in different directions. In terms of buyouts, the total value of all PE acquisitions announced in CEE in 2025 surpassed that of the previous year, with €7.7bn worth of deals announced. That represents a 19% increase year-on-year, despite volume dropping by 18% over the same period.

Aleksandras Papšys, Partner, Financial Advisory, Forvis Mazars in Lithuania, added: “PE funds have raised new capital and are targeting several industries. Tech and energy are going strong, and defence-related investments are likely to be targeted as well.”

Looking ahead, continuing uncertainty around US trade tariffs is likely to have an impact on dealmaking in 2026. The knock-on effects of tariffs are also likely to become increasingly apparent: trade diversion is one of these, with Chinese exports increasingly steered away from the US and towards Europe instead.

Meanwhile, the interest rate environment looks set to remain benign, at least in the eurozone. And GDP growth in CEE continues to power ahead, outpacing Western Europe. All of these factors augur well for M&A in 2026.

“The geopolitical outlook is the main question,” concluded Garofulić. “If people are afraid to invest, we will have a problem. What helps is that there is a lot of public spending, a lot of money from EU funds and the economy is doing well. Market positivity is one of the key elements, because the money is there.”

Further key findings from the report include:

• Regional hotspots. Poland, Austria, Romania and Lithuania stand out as the region’s most active M&A markets by volume in 2025. Though it remains a mainstay of regional M&A, Romania saw the most pronounced year-on-year decline in dealmaking, falling by 32% in volume terms, albeit from an abnormally busy 2024. Among the larger deal markets, Lithuania was the only one to record a year-on-year increase in transaction volume, rising by 21% to 119 deal announcements.
• Sector focus. Technology was the region’s greatest generator of inbound M&A deals in 2025, a position it has comfortably maintained over the last few years. Among the largest sectors for M&A, it also registered the slimmest year-on-year decline in activity, with 126 inbound transactions announced, down just 9% compared to 2024’s output. Second was industrials with a total of 69 inbound deals, down 19% year-on-year. Energy and utilities, the third-busiest sector for inbound acquirers in 2025, generated 60 inbound deals, a decline of 13% from 2024.
• CEE deal multiple surpasses rest of Europe. The median EV/EBITDA multiple for the CEE region rose to 9.9x in the 2024-2025 period, Mergermarket data shows. This represents an increase versus the 9.2x median multiple for the period 2023-2024 and is one of the highest deal multiples for the region on record. Indeed, CEE’s multiple surpasses that registered by the rest of Europe, which scored a multiple of 8.4x for the same period.

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