Merger and acquisition advisory specialist MarshBerry said a flurry of deals in September made it the busiest month since April this year when the tax year ended. But the total of 25 transactions in Q3 this was down on the 30 deals in Q2. In 2025, the total transactions for the year to date is 75, down by 34% on the 114 achieved in the same nine months last year.

MarshBerry said the 10 transactions recorded in September was just above the long-term average of 9.6 and began with one of the biggest deals of the year, namely Bain Capital’s acquisition of Jensten Group from Livingbridge.

When assessed by headcount, Jensten is the largest UK insurance distribution business to have sold this year.

John Nisbet (pictured), managing director of MarshBerry’s UK office said in his market report: “A running theme in 2025 had been a modest reduction in the proportion of UK M&A transactions that involved PE, either directly or indirectly (i.e., where the acquisition was made by a PE-backed firm).

“However, nine of the ten new deals (which incidentally all involved commercial broking targets) in September involved PE and given the relatively low volume of deals overall in 2025, this has pushed the proportion to just above half of all deals, which is consistent with 2024.”

He added: “Bain’s investment in Jensten Group is the fourth £100m+ UK transaction of 2025 involving a PE buyer, demonstrating that the consolidation opportunity in the sector still holds appeal and is attracting PE capital, even as deal volumes have fallen and the underlying pace of consolidation has slowed.”