For the legions of City advisers who make a living from working on mergers and acquisitions (M&A), it has been a disappointing year.
© ReutersA takeover of William Hill will be among the first deals set to be completed in 2021
Yet there are signs that, following the lockdowns earlier this year, activity is beginning to pick up again.
© GettyMore Than is RSA's best-known brand in the UK. Pic: RSA
Figures published on Tuesday by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reveal that, in the three months to the end of September, the value of deals in which one UK company acquired another rose to £4.4bn.
That was up from just £400m in the April to June quarter and £3.2bn from January to March.
At the same time, the value of deals done in which a company from abroad bought a UK business rose to £2.9bn, up from £2.1bn during the previous quarter - although down on the £5.1bn seen from January to March.
Only in so-called "outbound" M&A, where a British company buys a business overseas, was there a decline during the quarter - from £5.4bn from April to June to just £1.3bn.
However, even here, the number of outward acquisitions by UK companies rose from 22 in the April to June quarter to 42 in the July to September quarter.
Overall, the ONS said, domestic and cross-border M&A involving UK companies in the three months to the end of September saw 273 completed transactions. That was up from 176 in the three months to the end of June but down from 435 in the same three months last year.
© ReutersCisco Systems is among US firms to be buying UK businesses
The ONS added: "As these statistics only measure completed transactions, they cannot provide evidence to explain a reduction in the number of transactions for April to June 2020.
"However, the timing does follow the introduction of the restriction of movement in the UK, which began on 23 March 2020, in response to the coronavirus pandemic."
Notable deals involving UK companies during the quarter saw the FTSE 100 life company Phoenix Group complete its £3.2bn takeover of ReAssure, the UK arm of Swiss re, which was first announced in December last year.
It also saw the oil trading company Viaro complete the £247m takeover of North Sea oil producer RockRose Energy.
It is safe to assume that the numbers for coming quarters will point to a significant uplift in activity.
The current quarter has, for example, seen the insurer RSA agree to a £7.2bn takeover by Danish and Canadian rivals while the bookmaker William Hill is in the process of being taken over for £2.9bn by the US gaming giant Caesar's Entertainment. Both transactions will complete next year and show up in the 2021 figures for inward M&A.
© GettySlack has benefited from the boom in home working during the pandemic
Then, last week, the UK-based but US-listed financial data provider IHS Markit agreed a $44bn (£32bn) takeover by its US rival S&P Global.
There are also more domestic M&A deals happening. The Wellcome Trust last month agreed to by Urban & Civic, an urban development company, for £506m while Frenkel Topping, a financial adviser and wealth manager, is hoping to persuade the board of NAHL, a legal services marketing company, to agree to a merger that would create a £73m business.
But the majority of deals currently being agreed are those involving overseas buyers.
They include the £647m takeover of McCarthy & Stone, the retirement home builder, by the US private equity group Lone Star and the £543m takeover, announced on Monday, of the communications group IMImobile by the US titan Cisco Systems.
As intriguing are the number of takeover approaches that are currently being turned down by their targets.
Last week alone, the speciality chemicals company Elementis rejected a £755m takeover approach from US rival Mineral technologies while Telit Communications, the Internet of Things enabler, rejected a £259m approach from the private equity firm DBAY Advisors, its biggest shareholder. It remains in talks with both it and a Swiss rival called U-blox.
Other companies, meanwhile, are haggling with would-be buyers.
Sportech, the betting technology firm that once operated the football pools, has turned down a £61.3m approach from the US hedge fund Standard General but remains in talks with its would-be buyer. And Countrywide, the UK's largest quoted estate agents and owner of the Hamptons and Bairstow Eves chains, said on Monday that it is considering an increased offer worth £112m from rival Connells, owned by the Skipton Building Society, having earlier received an increased offer from the UK private equity firm Alchemy.
Numis Corporation, the independent investment banking group, said on Tuesday it was encouraged by the number of deals in the pipeline as it reported a 198% jump in full year pre-tax profits to £37.1m.
Ross Mitchinson, its co-chief executive, told Sky News: "We've quite a bit of M&A picking up.[and] there will definitely be a pick-up in inbound M&A."
There are a number of factors behind all this activity.
The first and most obvious is that there is pent-up demand following the lockdowns earlier this year. Companies that were looking to expand via acquisitions had to put activity on hold during the lockdown.
A second is a revival of confidence.
The single most important ingredient in M&A, arguably, is confidence among chief executives. Boards and managements are feeling more optimistic about the economic outlook for 2021 following the recent discoveries of vaccines for COVID-19.
If the economic backdrop is conducive to a pick-up in M&A, so are the monetary conditions, with ultra-low, near-zero or negative interest rates set to remain part of the landscape in leading economies around the world for at least another 12 months. Money is cheap and that will encourage a number of chief executives to borrow aggressively if it will help them snare their desired target.
There is also a lot of money around. According to the data provider Prequin, private equity firms globally were sitting on $1.8trn in 'dry powder' at the end of September, money they are keen to put to work.
An additional factor is that company boards and managements will also have been able to reassess during the pandemic those activities where they best need to allocate capital. That applies whether you are a company that has been hit hard by the pandemic and needs to reposition or whether you are a business that has thrived during the pandemic and wishes to press home that advantage.
There is also the US factor. What happens on Wall Street tends to be followed in the City and, currently, there is a lot of M&A activity on Wall Street. During the current quarter alone, chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices has agreed to pay $34.7bn for its rival Xilinxc; drugmaker Bristol Myers Squibb has agreed to pay $12bn for rival MyoKardia; oil major ConocoPhillips has agreed to buy shale driller Concho Resources for $9.7bn and Home Depot, the do-it-yourself giant, has agreed to buy supplier HD Supply for $9.1bn. Then, last week, business software group Salesforce agreed to buy rival Slack for $27.7bn.
Finally, there is a UK specific factor, which is the ongoing weakness of the pound and the ongoing undervaluation of UK companies. Sterling is currently at historically low levels against the US dollar, the euro, the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc. Any buyer using those as their 'acquisition currency' therefore has an inbuilt advantage when buying sterling-denominated assets.
Adding to that advantage is the fact that UK companies are trading on lower stock market valuations (as measured by the value of a company divided by its profits), for a number of reasons, among them uncertainty over the UK's relationship with the EU after the Brexit transition period has ended.
All of which suggests that M&A advisers in the UK are set to be considerably busier in 2021 than they have been this year.