12 August 2026
Good morning. Another huge 24 hours for Irish business brings a €1.4bn valuation for H&MV Engineering, the largest Irish-Irish deal ever with Kingspan’s €900m BMC deal and an Irish bid for one of cycling’s most famous names. Dublin’s office market is moving again too, with Sony leading a fresh wave of specialist investment and hiring. Abroad, oil and US inflation are setting the market mood. Let’s get into it.
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The Top 5
1. H&MV Engineering Hits A €1.4bn Valuation. Adding to the incredible amount of Irish company dealmaking recently, the story broke just after yesterday's newsletter that Limerick-headquartered H&MV Engineering has been valued at €1.4bn as Exponent extends its investment through a new €750m continuation fund backed by Apollo S3, Pantheon and SQ Capital. Exponent originally invested €120m in H&MV and set off a rapid expansion and acquisitions across Ireland and the US. H&MV expects revenue to reach €1bn this year, has a €2bn order book and is targeting €3bn within five years. Irish engineering is becoming seriously valuable infrastructure business.
2. Kingspan Makes A €900m Data Centre Bet. Kingspan has agreed to acquire Meath-based BMC Manufacturing for €850m, with a further €50m contingent on profit targets. That is the biggest ever acquisition of an Irish company by an Irish buyer. BMC makes switchboards and critical-power systems for data centres and is forecast to generate about €280m of revenue this year. The deal, still subject to regulatory clearance, pushes Kingspan further into the power systems sitting behind global AI and cloud expansion.
3. FDI Hiring Gets More Specialised. Sony is set to lease 32,000 sq ft at Dockline in Dublin for a new PlayStation R&D operation, with occupation expected in 2027. Anthropic is recruiting an AI compliance officer on €200,000 to €255,000, while SpaceXAI is seeking a Dublin network operations technician on up to roughly €95,000. At the same time, Culligan, the biggest producer of filtered water in Ireland is taking a broader route, planning 102 additional Irish jobs by 2029. The hiring mix is shifting towards highly specialised engineering and AI alongside important domestic expansion.
4. An Irish Bid For One Of Cycling's Great Names. Dublin-headquartered Quanta Capital is evaluating a bid for insolvent Accell Group, owner of Raleigh, Haibike and Ghost. Raleigh is the prize with history: founded in Nottingham in 1887, it became a world leader in bicycle manufacturing, sold 1.5m Choppers and later backed a Tour de France-winning team. Quanta's interest remains early-stage and subject to due diligence and the Dutch insolvency process, but an Irish-backed rescue could end up controlling one of cycling's best-known names.
5. Dublin's Office Market Has Turned. Dublin office take-up reached one million sq. ft. in H1, vacancy fell to 12.2% and just 910,000 sq. ft. is under construction, 60% already pre-let. This shows Dublin's office market is back in full swing, added to by Sony's taking 32,000 sq. ft. at Dockline for its PlayStation R&D team, while Tommy Kelly's CastleGate has lodged plans to revive the long-vacant former Ulster Bank building on O'Connell Street. Prime office scarcity is replacing vacancy as the problem.
World in 60 Seconds
Iran says the Strait of Hormuz will stay closed until its demands are met, pushing Brent above $89 on Tuesday and keeping fuel and freight costs firmly in the global picture as Fuels for Ireland warned the Government of potential further protests if the fuel supports lapse. Wall Street finished lower ahead of today’s US inflation report, which will test expectations for the Federal Reserve’s next move. Intel has increased its planned share sale from $15bn to $20bn as it looks to fund its AI-driven investment push. Spotify is pushing further into generative AI and music, while Donald Trump is again putting social-media regulation into the political firing line. Markets have plenty of growth stories to price, but oil and inflation continue to decide how expensive that growth becomes.
Today’s Sector Spotlight
Finance & Markets
Markets are absorbing conflicting signals this morning, caught between a firming oil price and unusually strong European earnings, even as the underlying export engine keeps cooling.
Brent crude pushed above $89 a barrel on Tuesday after Iran said it would keep the Strait of Hormuz closed until its conditions are met, reversing the more optimistic mood priced in earlier this week. For Irish aviation and haulage that means renewed cost pressure, and a reminder that Monday's "close to a deal" framing was premature.
New CSO figures published Monday showed manufacturing production down 5% year-on-year in the second quarter, as the pharma-led export surge that inflated last year's numbers continues to unwind. The Central Statistics Office cautioned against reading too much into single quarters, but the trend confirms Irish exporters are normalising off an artificially high 2025 base built on tariff front-running.
Corporate dealmaking told a different story. Kingspan agreed to buy Meath-based BMC Manufacturing, which makes switchboards and power systems for data-centre operators, in a deal worth up to €900m, alongside 45% profit growth at its Advnsys data-infrastructure unit. Limerick's H&MV Engineering was separately valued at €1.4bn through a €750m continuation fund led by Exponent, targeting €3bn revenue within five years as it expands into Dallas.
In banking, Revolut chief executive Nik Storonsky is reportedly in early-stage talks over a new pay package that would sharply increase his stake if the fintech eventually reaches a $500bn valuation, more than four times its current $115bn mark. No agreement has been struck, but if finalised it would be the largest deal of its kind in Europe, underscoring how aggressively Revolut is positioning itself ahead of an eventual IPO.
The forward watch is whether Wednesday's US inflation data shifts the Federal Reserve's rate path.
In Thursday’s Tá, the Sector Spotlight will be Health & Pharma.
The Rotation
Wednesday - By The Numbers
€€1.4bn: H&MV Engineering’s new valuation following Exponent’s €750m continuation-fund transaction.
€900m: Kingspan’s maximum price for Meath-based BMC, the latest major Irish deal in a week packed with acquisitions.
€75m: What Nichols paid for Dublin drinks brand VitHit, keeping its Irish office as the business moves under new ownership.
€296m: Raised by Irish companies across 20 VC deals in Q2, although three transactions accounted for 63% of the total.
300: Additional jobs Vertiv plans for Letterkenny, subject to planning for its latest expansion.
11.2%: Annual return from Irish commercial property to June, according to JLL, as investment and prime office activity strengthen.
1 million sq ft: Dublin office take-up in the first half of 2026, with vacancy falling to 12.2%.
The Craic & the Scéal
Enterprise Ireland needs someone to run Ireland’s first AI accelerator, so if your expertise goes beyond asking ChatGPT silly questions and your balance sheet can survive a State tender process, applications await. Apple, meanwhile, is still planning a mostly glass iPhone for 2027, because apparently the current ones were not breakable enough. It may suit Ireland’s film industry nicely, with more than 100 productions qualifying for tax relief in H1. Government celebrations may be slightly muted, though, after officials accused big employers of plotting to undermine its shiny new auto-enrolment pension scheme.
Worth Your Time
The Read – The Irish Times – Crisis-Stricken Volkswagen Is Emblematic Of Germany's Ailing Economy
Volkswagen is preparing its most consequential restructuring in 89 years, cutting up to 100,000 jobs, a sixth of its global workforce. The piece traces a triple bind driving the decision with Chinese EV makers outpacing Volkswagen at home and abroad, Chinese imports of Volkswagen cars down a third since 2019, and Donald Trump's tariffs hitting the group in its most lucrative US market. Union pushback on the supervisory board has already narrowed management's room to manoeuvre. The analysis uses Volkswagen as a lens on wider German deindustrialisation, a slow-moving risk to Europe's growth that Irish exporters and investors with German exposure should be watching closely. The Link: Crisis-Stricken Volkswagen Is Emblematic Of Germany's Ailing Economy
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