Portugal closed 289 company deals to July. That is 28% fewer than last year
M&A involving Portuguese companies reached €4.5bn in the first seven months of 2026, TTR Data says. Real estate leads with 44 deals and Macquarie's €310m purchase of Luz Saúde was July's biggest.
Fewer companies are changing hands in Portugal this year. Between January and July there were 289 mergers and acquisitions worth €4.5bn in total, 28% fewer deals than in the same stretch of 2025 and 20% less capital moved. The figures come from TTR Data, with one caveat worth keeping: only 31% of deals disclosed a price, so the real total is larger than the countable one.
The drop in deal count is the harder half to explain away. It is not that deals got smaller. There were fewer of them.
Which sector is buying most in Portugal in 2026?
Real estate. At 44 transactions it is the most active sector of the year, which says something about where institutional money still thinks it is worth showing up — and it fits the record foreign investment Portugal booked this year. Among foreign acquisitions, the technology and internet segment fell 23% against 2025.
Cross-border, Spain was the biggest investor into Portugal with 19 deals. Portuguese companies mostly went the same way, with 32 deals in Spain and eight in Brazil.
The three blocks holding the year up
The chart above splits what is left. Asset acquisitions lead on 68 deals worth €2.3bn, still 5% down on last year’s capital. Venture capital recorded 53 rounds and €523m, and is the only segment growing, up 5% on money invested. Private equity managed 44 deals, a 27% fall.
July alone brought 42 deals and €1.4bn. The month’s headline transaction was Australian group Macquarie completing its €310m purchase of Luz Saúde — the kind of healthcare deal that keeps pulling in foreign capital even when the rest of the market slows.
By Beatriz Mota
Image: Tugadaily chart · data from TTR Data
