Sector Specialization: the thesis behind igc's leadership in M&A over the last 5 years
Reading time
5 minutes
Date
Jul 21, 2026
Author
Murilo Oliveira — Partner, igc Partners
A leadership sustained by number of transactions, and not by a few giant deals, requires a method that repeats well across very different sectors. igc's thesis is that this method runs through sector specialization: dedicated teams that continuously track the active buyers, the theses and the movements of each segment. The 118 transactions completed over the last five years that place the firm at the top of the Mergermarket ranking in Latin America were done in agribusiness, technology, healthcare, consumer, industry and other sectors, each one presented in the logic of its buyer.
When the person leading the process truly understands the sector, the approach to the market stops being generic and becomes surgical. This shows up right at the buyer mapping stage: instead of an obvious list of the usual suspects, the advisor knows which strategics and funds have, at that moment, real mandate and appetite for that type of asset, in Brazil and abroad, including buyers that a generalist eye would not identify.
It also shows up in the value thesis. The sale material is built in the logic that drives that specific buyer, highlighting what actually creates value for them — a synergy, a strategic asset, a market position — and not a generic description of the company.
A well-designed competitive process does not depend on talking to many buyers, but on attracting the right buyers. With sector knowledge, the approach is more precise, conversations move faster because they begin already in the language of the sector, and the probability of a competitive offer rises. The buyer realizes they are dealing with someone who understands the business, and this changes the quality of the dialogue from the first contact to the final negotiation.
Knowing the multiples in play, the typical structures and the recurring contingencies of a sector makes it possible to anticipate the sensitive points and to defend the seller better. One knows what is standard and what is excessive in a guarantee requirement, which due diligence findings are common in the sector and how to respond to them, and where the buyer usually tries to capture value. In regulated sectors or those with a complex thesis, this knowledge reduces the risk of surprises that would stall or cheapen the transaction.
The most direct way is to ask for specificity. Which active buyers do they know in your segment, and what is each one looking for today? Which transactions similar to yours have they followed or conducted? How do the sector's theses appear in the strategy and in the material they propose for your company? Concrete answers, with buyer profiles and a reading of the segment's dynamics, reveal real familiarity. Generic answers, that would serve any sector, reveal the opposite. Specificity is the best test, and it costs only a conversation.
No: it adds to it. The ideal is the combination of command of the transaction process with deep knowledge of the sector. A lack of process exposes the seller to asymmetry against buyers who close acquisitions all the time; a lack of sector weakens the thesis, the mapping and the approach. One competency without the other leaves value on the table. The consistency that sustains a five-year leadership comes, precisely, from having both at the same time, transaction after transaction.
igc organizes its work into sector units, with teams that continuously track the active buyers, the theses and the movements of each segment. This makes it possible to build, for each client, an approach anchored in the logic of their sector: who the right buyers are, what drives them and how to position the asset for each of them.
This specialization is supported by a library of cases by sector, built over 29 years and more than 520 transactions, and by access to more than 6,000 buyers in Brazil and abroad. It is the thesis that sustains the firm's leadership in the Mergermarket ranking in sell-side M&A in Latin America over the last five years.
Because it changes the buyer mapping, the value thesis and the negotiation. Talking to the right buyer, in the language of the sector, is usually worth more than approaching many generic buyers.
Ask for specificity: which active buyers do they know, which theses drive those buyers and how this appears in the material and strategy proposed. Concrete answers reveal real familiarity.
Often yes. What matters is whether the advisor accesses the right buyers for that asset, including international strategics, and understands the value logic of the segment.
The position in the Mergermarket ranking considers the total of sell-side transactions completed in Latin America over the last five years, distributed among the sectors in which the firm operates with dedicated units.
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