Skip to content
About | Contact | Advertise | Manage Subscriptions
  1. Home
  2. Around the North

Ontario losing M&A market share to Western provinces

A new PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report on merger and acquisition (M&A) deal activity comparing provincial buy side and sell side transactions shows that while Ontario and Quebec continue to be top investment destinations in Canada, each has lo
Northern Ontario Business Staff

A new PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report on merger and acquisition (M&A) deal activity comparing provincial buy side and sell side transactions shows that while Ontario and Quebec continue to be top investment destinations in Canada, each has lost market share to the Western provinces over the past 10 years.

“Canadian M&A is not just about Toronto and Montreal anymore,” said Kristian Knibutat, PwC's Canadian deals leader. “These centres are still critical for deal making, but regional trends certainly point to interesting opportunities in Canada's west, as well as in Canada's most eastern provinces.”

The report highlights that while Ontario and Quebec continue to be among the top three investment destinations in Canada, each province has lost sell side market share over the past decade. Targets in Ontario and Quebec once represented 47 per cent and 29 per cent, by value, of all acquisitions in Canada. Today, the provinces market shares have declined to 31 per cent and 22 per cent respectively.

The report also found that:

  • Ontario-based buyers are gaining market share. This year, 70 per cent of acquisitions involving a Canadian buyer included an Ontario-based buyer, the highest proportion of any province and a 117 per cent increase over Ontario's proportion of buy side deal values in 2000. Fifty-six per cent of acquisitions were outside of Canada. Overall, Ontario-based buyers outpaced Ontario based sellers by a factor of 3.8 to 1 year to date.

  • Mining is the number one targeted sector in each of Ontario and British Columbia, thanks to Toronto and Vancouver's roles as global capital markets centers (the majority of mining projects being acquired, however, are typically outside of the provinces).

  • Saskatchewan's uranium, potash and farm land sectors and Ontario's retail banking sector are likely among the most coveted for acquisition in the country. These sectors see little inbound M&A activity due to regulatory hurdles.

The report says there are a number of hot topics to watch with provincial impacts in deal making. These include the Liberal election win in Ontario, which paved the way for increased investment in renewable energy and the Plan Nord in Quebec, which has the potential to do for Northern Quebec what the development of the oil sands did for Alberta.