SOFIA (Bulgaria), November 17 (SeeNews) – Almost half the executives in Central and Southeast Europe (CSE) are more confident that the local economy is improving than they were a year ago, Ernst&Young (E&Y) said in a report.
The number of executives confident about the outlook of both credit availability and corporate earnings has increased substantially over the past 12 months to 50% and 47% respectively, E&Y said in the October 2014 Capital Confidence Barometer report.
A total of 53% of executives consider increased global political instability to be the greatest economic risk to their business. Slowed growth in key emerging markets and the pace of structural reforms in the Euro area are also some of the problems perceived by executives.
A total of 27% of executives said their companies will actively pursue actively mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the next 12 months, the highest scores since October 2012.
On top of that, almost 90% of executives see the outlook for M&A as stable or improving.
"While 2014 has been notable for high-profile mega-deals, the Barometer suggests that middle-market M&A will provide a significant lift to deal activity,“ E&Y said in the report.
Half of respondents said they expect no changes in their companies' deals over the next 12 months.
The October Capital Confidence Barometer report covered 193 executives in CSE from 18 sectors, including diversified industrial products (19%), technology (12%), consumer products and retail (11%), financial services (10%), automotive and transportation (8%), agriculture-based (6%) and real estate (6%). Companies were mainly in the privately-owned sector (44%), followed by the public sector (25%) and family-owned (17%). Government-owned companies comprised 4,0% of all.