Foreign buyers lead UK take-privates as new PM Burnham inherits £12.5bn deal wave he cannot easily reverse

UK take-private activity (deals where a publicly listed company is bought and delisted) reached £12.5 billion in the first four months of 2026, after generating £18.1 billion across 24 deals across the whole of 2025, according to PitchBook analysis. Foreign buyers, predominantly American sponsors, have led eight of the ten largest take-privates over the past year and a half, treating London-listed companies as underpriced relative to their US-based peers. The trend places incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham in a structurally difficult position. He has pledged to back British business and drive reindustrialisation, but has inherited an equity market where domestic pension funds are not deploying capital into UK companies at anything close to comparable rates seen in other markets. That capital vacuum leaves listed UK companies exposed to overseas acquirers who can move quickly and pay premiums that domestic investors will not match. The Q2 2026 UK Market Snapshot from PitchBook shows mixed momentum across UK private markets more broadly. Private equity rebounded from a softer start to the year, driven by large buyouts, though PE fundraising remained subdued. Venture capital stayed resilient, supported by a new wave of AI megadeals, with Isomorphic Labs cited as a notable example. Capital continues to concentrate in AI and larger transactions, while macroeconomic uncertainty and weaker liquidity constrain the wider market. The structural imbalance between foreign deal appetite and domestic capital deployment is a live policy question for the new government, with implications for how public M&A rules, pension fund investment mandates, and London listing attractiveness are approached in the coming months.