Consumer & Retail |

Quarterly M&A Update | May 2026

Latest market trends, valuation levels and deals

The Consumer & Retail sector remains selective, but transaction-ready

The Consumer & Retail market remains challenging. In Germany, the brief recovery in consumer sentiment at the beginning of the year did not gain lasting momentum. Willingness to buy remains low, savings propensity is high and renewed inflation concerns continue to weigh on discretionary categories.

At the same time, the market has not come to a standstill. In Europe, 324 transactions were recorded in the Consumer & Retail sector in Q1 2026, compared with 365 transactions in a strong Q4 2025. Buyers are reviewing opportunities more selectively and differentiating more clearly by business model, margin quality, pricing power, cash generation and category resilience.

With this latest edition, Oaklins Germany has expanded and refined the Consumer & Retail Quarterly M&A Update to provide a more granular view across twelve sub-sectors, including broader coverage of sports, leisure & hobby, dedicated perspectives on pet care and food and a differentiated split of E-Commerce into E-Commerce Retail and E-Commerce Services.

This more granular perspective is critical in the current market environment. Defensive categories and assets with pricing power continued to hold up better, while discretionary segments remained under greater pressure. The reported valuation level across the twelve subverticals stood at 11.2x EV/EBITDA in Q1 2026.

The current edition also includes an E-Commerce Spotlight. It underlines why e-commerce requires a more differentiated view: retail-led models with inventory and working capital intensity follow a different valuation logic than scalable platform, service or infrastructure models.

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