WITH a generally improving corporate economy, companies are increasingly sensing opportunities to grow not just organically, but through careful, well thought through acquisitions.

Additionally, private shareholders of businesses that have responded positively to recent times are finding that there are opportunities to sell or realise value at fair prices.

M&A in our region continues to be dominated by trade buyers looking for clear, strategically important business purchases.

However, there continues to be an increased momentum in private equity-backed transactions and we would expect the statistics to reflect this greater activity when the current pipeline of deals reach completion across the autumn.

While the pipeline for mergers and acquisitions strengthens, transactions are generally taking longer to complete when compared to 2008.

This is a trend prevalent across trade and private equity-backed deals and is primarily due to increased stakeholder scrutiny and due diligence requirements.

In addition, the mix of funding required to finance a deal has a bearing on the time required to complete it.

For businesses with clear, well presented business plans, bank funding is definitely more accessible when compared to a couple of years ago. Of particular note is the increased prevalence of asset-backed debt loans, which may prove an appropriate funding line for many medium-sized businesses.

The story regarding strategic acquisitions is the same. For a quality, large corporate with relatively modest gearing requirements, the appetite is strong. The further you move away from this, the increased challenge in raising debt.

In private equity deals particularly, because of the timetable implications for a debt-funding exercise, there has been an increasing trend of the private equity investor underwriting the entire transaction on completion, with a view to refinancing the deal structure with debt at post completion.

Set against these markets conditions, it is paramount for vendors to adequately invest in preparing for sale, in order to present their company in the optimal way.

:: @Dan Renton, director in corporate finance for Deloitte in the North East