The value of deals was 22 per cent higher than the previous year.

Addleshaw Goddard was once again ranked top adviser for deals by volume, with a total of 22. It was followed by Pinsent Masons, which had 15 deals while Burness Paull took third place with 14. CMS and Brodies followed with 11 and 10 deals respectively.

The £4.6bn sale by Edinburgh-based banking group NatWest of the tracker mortgage business of Ulster Bank to AIB Group topped the tables for 2022 and is the largest deal Scotland has seen since 2012.

Small-cap deals rose by 13 per cent in volume, from 77 in 2021 to 87 in 2022, whilst value increased by 13.6 per cent. Large deals remained steady on 15, the same number as recorded last year, with values up by 25 per cent. There was one more mega deal than last year, with the eight such deals valued at a total of £18.6bn, a 27 per cent increase on 2021. Only the mid-market failed to delight, recording a 29 per cent drop in volume and a corresponding 44 per cent dip in value.

Whilst domestic transactions made up the bulk of Scotland’s deal activity, assets in the USA, Poland, Germany and Australia proved to be attractive to Scottish buyers. European acquirors accounted for 48.6 per cent of inbound investment activity, with the USA and Canada representing a further 32 per cent of deals.

Scotland’s deal activity represented 6.3 per cent of the UK’s total by volume, and 10.9 per cent by value.

Annual M&A volume in the UK as a whole declined slightly in 2022, with 7,080 transactions announced over the year – down from 7,210 in 2021.