“Businesses are striving to put their strategic plans into action for the upcoming years, while contending with persistent external factors like employee shortages, ongoing inflation, heightened competition across a number of industries and uncertain long-term market conditions. Additionally, many businesses are actively assessing how they can harness developments in technology, particularly the application of data analytics and artificial intelligence, to improve their efficiency, while also considering how the increased focus on ESG will influence their operations in the coming years. Our Deals, Consulting, and Risk and Regulation business units, which make up our Advisory practice, continue to assist our clients in addressing these and many other challenges that they constantly face.”
Malta’s GDP growth is expected to slow down over the next two years, decreasing from 7.5% in 2023 to 4.9% in 2024, and further to 4.3% in 2025. Relative to the euro area average, Malta’s GDP growth trajectory however remains robust, driven largely by domestic consumption and net exports. Unemployment in Malta remains low, standing at 3.1% in 2023, and is expected to stay at this level over the next two years. Meanwhile, inflation is set to decrease from 5.6% in 2023 to 2.5% in 2024 and further to 2.1% in 2025, as services and food price inflation are expected to normalise gradually, similar to trends in other euro area economies.
Our Deals team is committed to driving value for businesses by helping organisations identify and successfully carry out transactions, such as mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and restructurings, with the goal of maximising value.
In the last year, we have continued to witness a decline in global transaction activity due to higher interest rates, and market and economic uncertainty. Nonetheless, the local market continues to be relatively active. During the last financial year, we were engaged to assist clients in several significant local transactions, particularly in the local middle market segment as well as in the online gaming sector. One of the major transactions handled by our team in the past year, included buyside assistance to one of the larger global fashion retail companies that acquired a substantial shareholding in a locally owned fashion retail group that operates in Europe and Africa. Members of our transaction services team also continued to be involved in a number of global transactions in collaboration with other PwC offices in Australia, Denmark, Luxembourg and Saudi Arabia. These opportunities offer our people a unique opportunity to gain invaluable experience by working on a larger variety of transactions.
Given the evolving market dynamics and the challenges faced by many local companies, we anticipate a continued need for market consolidation in the coming years. To address this, we have established a dedicated M&A team to assist potential sellers in preparing their businesses for sale and identifying suitable buyers. Additionally, we support potential buyers in finding targets that align with their organisations. Our expert team guides clients through the entire transaction process, from preparing necessary documents and materials to managing the transaction to ensure a smooth and efficient process.
Our valuation team includes a group of highly technical specialists with experience in valuing businesses, real estate, complex financial instruments and intangible assets. In the past year, we have carried out valuations across all these categories for various reasons including transactions, recognition in the financial statements, business and/or shareholder restructuring and transfer pricing assessments. Beyond the valuation services offered to clients, we offer ongoing support to our Assurance practice and the broader PwC network, particularly in the preparation of fair value assessments, impairment testing, and going concern evaluations.
After a quiet period linked to the high-interest rate scenario, momentum in the local capital markets has picked up in recent months. Our team continues to be active as financial advisors in a number of corporate debt listings on the local market. Activity in terms of equity issue remains limited, principally due to our relatively illiquid secondary market for equity instruments that is making it difficult for local IPOs to be viable.
In the past year, we have also supported several clients in the preparation of feasibility studies and in assessing strategic alternatives, aimed at optimising shareholder value. We also help clients by combining our corporate finance skills with data analysis to identify opportunities that create value for their organisations.
The investment in staff upskilling over the past few years is yielding significant results. Our team is now proficient in using a wide range of advanced data tools such as Power BI and Alteryx. With this strong foundation, we have now shifted our focus to upskilling our team in the use of Artificial Intelligence tools. In the coming months, we will be launching Junction, an AI and data-powered tool that will enable us to engage with clients in real-time thereby enabling us to provide them with insights from our engagements more efficiently and effectively.
Our Risk and Regulation team assists organisations in navigating the complex landscape of risk management. Amongst other services, we help clients continuously improve their internal controls and their internal audit functions, prepare business continuity plans, and provide forensic services.
Over the past year, we have supported several licensed financial institutions and non-regulated entities by offering full internal audit outsourcing, co-sourcing, and internal audit advisory services. Additionally, we have helped numerous clients in both the public and private sectors develop risk management frameworks, drafting conflict of interest policies, and providing ad hoc training in these areas. We have also been involved in engagements where we assisted clients in articulating their risk management and internal control frameworks sections in the business plan prepared for submission to the regulator as part of the licence application process.
Our multidisciplinary team of management consultants have throughout this year continued to support our clients to develop and implement sustainable strategies that help them innovate and grow, whilst reducing costs and leveraging their talent. In this regard, we have also been supporting them in navigating their rapidly changing environment, also ensuring that they effectively transform and succeed in reaping the benefits of the adoption of technology.
In FY24, our focus has therefore remained on supporting our clients in both the private and public sector to address their challenges and opportunities across the wide array of consulting services we offer including strategy and research, workforce solutions, EU funding and policy, programme management and sustainability. Besides a continued focus on local clients, this year we also expanded our reach and have supported other PwC territories with their consulting engagements.
Over the past year, we have carried out diverse projects across both the public and private sector, delivering strategic insight to clients by helping them gather and visualise data better. We have combined our research capabilities with subject matter expertise from across the firm to add value to our clients. As a corporate member of ESOMAR, we are committed to uphold the highest level of professional conduct and to implement best practices that support effective decision-making.
Our work has supported strategic decision making, including viability and feasibility assessments which forms part of the due diligence work prior to a merger or acquisition. We have also carried out various market quantification studies spanning across various industries from FMCG, to real estate, renewable energy, and technology. We continue to conduct primary research on behalf of our clients, through online digital surveys using various survey and sampling techniques, as well as mystery shopping, in-depth interviews and focus groups.
We have worked with our clients to create customised dashboards for data visualisation built by our team using the platform most suitable for our clients’ needs. Our tools enable our clients the possibility to interact with the data, uncover trends and insights, filter and drill-down to different data points, and present data from different sources in one place.
Advisory Services
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