Transatlantic Trade Monitor: Facts You Need Now | Buy Back Better: How Europe Is Re-shaping U.S. Industry by Acquiring It

By: Ian Hunter, Director, OCO Global

2025 has been a big year for M&A.  In a year when cranes aren’t the only measure of progress, much of the action has been happening on cap tables as well as construction sites. But the cranes will come later. As with many of these deals, the key words following an acquisition is ‘growth’.  In short, European investors are buying in, and scaling up.

In December 2024, Novo Holdings completed its $16.5 billion acquisition of Catalent, the U.S. contract manufacturer whose sterile fill-finish lines sit at the center of the GLP-1 boom. As part of the transaction, Novo Nordisk purchased three Catalent plants (including Bloomington, Indiana, plus facilities in Belgium and Italy) to accelerate pen-filling capacity.  Soon after, in January 2025, Novo Holdings said it aims to “double Catalent’s size.” For Malvern and Philadelphia, that signals a European owner using M&A to scale U.S. capacity already on the ground – no ribbon cutting required, yet.

That scene captures the tilt of 2025. Europe isn’t abandoning greenfield builds, but many boards are favoring buy over build when speed, permits, and workforce are decisive. The center of gravity has shifted slightly from ceremonial ribbon-cuttings to ownership of regulated, hard-to-replicate assets – plants, permits, IP, grid interconnects, and data campuses – already on U.S. soil, and crucially, already behind the tariff walls.

Why now: capital costs, industrial policy, and tariff math

Tariffs and trade frictions push, too. Whether it’s industrial equipment, clean-tech inputs, or sensitive digital infrastructure, a European exporter faces the risk that tariffs or rules of origin change mid-investment. Buying U.S. operations localizes revenue and eligibility for incentives. It also shortens time-to-market compared with permitting a greenfield project. That calculus is showing up in board papers across Europe, even when the press release never mentions tariffs. As Reuters’ tariff tracker notes, firms across sectors are weighing exactly those choices – localize, absorb, or pass through – with many opting to localize to the U.S. market. Iberdrola told investors its reliance on local U.S. suppliers leaves it “virtually” unaffected by new U.S. tariffs, an illustration of why European utilities prefer owning regulated U.S. networks and sourcing domestically to de-risk trade policy.

Industrial policy provides the map. Federal programs continue to prioritize semiconductors, energy transition, grid build-out, and data/AI infrastructure. These are not generic subsidies; they favor assets already positioned to expand on U.S. soil – exactly what acquisitions deliver. Life sciences sits in the same current: regulators have signaled that reliable domestic capacity is strategic, and deals structured with U.S. investment and jobs in mind are getting through. The Novo-Catalent closing, and plant transfers were read in Europe as confirmation that U.S. policy wants capacity inside the fence.

Monetary policy tilted the field. When the Federal Reserve cut rates in September, issuance jumped and credit spreads stayed unusually tight – lowering the all-in cost of financing U.S. acquisitions and, crucially for euro-area corporates, narrowing cross-currency funding differentials. The Fed’s guidance implied room to ease further if inflation cooperates. For European boards running buy-versus-build models, that shift compresses payback periods on U.S. targets.

What Europe is buying

The inbound story in 2025 is not spread evenly. European buyers have clustered where U.S. policy, demand, and scarcity intersect.

• Semiconductors (and the AI supply chain)

Europe’s chip champions are acquiring U.S. capability where it matters: the nodes that feed automotive, industrial, and AI-adjacent demand. In July, STMicroelectronics agreed to buy part of NXP’s sensor business for up to $950 million.  A targeted acquisition that strengthens ST’s MEMS and automotive safety portfolio and embeds deeper ties into U.S. customers and programs.

• Energy transition (and reliable power)

Spain’s Iberdrola – already the majority owner of Avangrid – moved to buy the remaining 18.4% it didn’t own in an all-cash ~$2.6 billion deal, consolidating a major U.S. utility-renewables platform with marquee exposure in New York and New England. The transaction received New York regulatory clearance and proceeded to closing, positioning Iberdrola to deploy more capital into U.S. networks just as grid investment becomes the chokepoint for growth. Iberdrola subsequently outlined a plan to steer two-thirds of €58 billion through 2028 into power networks, mainly in the U.S. and U.K., underscoring grids as the asset class of the moment.

• Life sciences & biomanufacturing (and industrial capacity)

Back to where we began: Novo Holdings acquisition of Catalent. The reason this Danish-into-U.S. deal resonates far beyond pharmaceuticals is that it codifies the new playbook. Acquire FDA-cleared capacity, commit incremental capex in America, and – if necessary – rebalance assets post-close to where bottlenecks are tightest (in this case, GLP-1). The transaction was approved and closed at speed for a deal of this complexity, underscoring that life-critical capacity on U.S. soil is a policy priority.

So why are European boards doing this now?

The policy scaffolding in the U.S. rewards speed and certainty. Rate cuts lowered financing costs and reopened bond windows for acquisition debt. Industrial programs in chips, power, and digital infrastructure reward domestic capacity expansions that are easier to execute from an acquired base than from bare ground. And tariff risk – hard to forecast and harder to hedge – becomes manageable when revenue, labor, and physical assets are inside the United States. Put bluntly: 2025 is the first year in a decade when the fastest path into America’s strategic sectors is to own them.

Compliments of OCO Global – a member of the EACCNY