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New year, new beginnings, or at least, many of us hope that will be the case for a more hopeful, peaceful and economically benign 2023. China decided to end its Zero Covid policy to boost its economy but the IMF forecasts global growth to slow down from 6 per cent in 2021 to 2.7 per cent in 2023, which still represents good growth. It also expects global inflation to decline from 8.8 per cent in 2022 to 6.5 per cent in 2023*.
Our analysis of data shows that whilst M&A activity is still high, overall activity declined by around 25% - 30% during 2022 back to pre-COVID levels. At the time of writing this, several banks and professional firms have announced job cuts globally, in what many can see as an adjustment for the general slowdown in the economy. Nevertheless, depending on where we are in our global village, some will feel more cheerful than others about the near term. There remains a vast amount of global private equity capital available for investment.
Our environment and the green energy transition is still top of the agenda and reports coming from Davos deliver excitement around the shift towards hydrogen. Within our smaller remit, we are delighted to publish our interview with the CEO of Earth Capital Ltd, Avent Bezuidenhoudt, who is an authority in sustainable financing. Earth Capital is an early mover into this area and has received many industry accolades for their ground breaking work and approach to sustainable financing.
This issue of Horizons will review 2022 and provide some predictions on where we are going in 2023 in terms of M&A activity according to our proprietary data. We are focussing on our regions this time and hope you find this new Horizons interesting and refreshing.