In a release made available to BusinessDay, the professional services firm stated that in South Africa, deal volume increased 78 percent year-on-year, whilst deal value increased fourfold to US$1, 1165m in 2016.
According to Quintin Hobbs, Africa Mining & Metals Transactions Leader at EY: “The surprisingly strong bull market in commodity prices in 2016, as well as renewed discipline and focus on cash preservation resulted in more lean and efficient organisations with stronger balance sheets. This in context of deal activity in 2015 coming off a low base resulted in increased deal activity for 2016 and can be seen as a normalisation in activity.”