businesswoman drawing big fish eat small fish on the wall

With 2017 in the books, last year proved to be strong for middle market M&A transactions, according to Pursant. The contract cleaning industry was no exception with a number of acquisitions taking place last year.

Pursant noted that with limited organic growth opportunities, companies increased market share through acquisitions. This was anticipated to be the case for 15 percent of building service contractors, according to Contracting Profits’ “2017 Report On The Building Service Contractor Market.”

Another key takeaway according to Pursant was that non-U.S. companies made up an increasing percent of the buyers. One example of this in the contract cleaning industry is the French company ATALIAN Group buying four American BSCs in the past two years.

Pursant predicts that 2018 M&A activity in the middle market will surpass 2017 levels. However, it cautions that the changes to the current political landscape could affect acquisition activity.

Despite the favorable conditions and continued retiring of Baby Boomers, building service contractors don’t anticipate to be as active in the M&A market this year. Less than 10 percent of BSCs expect to acquire another company in 2018, according to the “2018 Report On The Building Service Contractor Market.”

Read more about the 2017 M&A overview and 2018 predictions here.