Ankura Unveils Results of Inaugural Ankura Joint Venture Index, Showcasing Strategic Importance of Joint Venture Transactions in Market Recovery, Innovation and Access

Index from Firm’s Joint Venture and Partnership Practice Highlights Role of JVs and Partnerships in Driving Critically Important Global Business Trends and Developments in 2020

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NEW YORK, April 13, 2021 — Ankura Consulting Group, LLC (“Ankura”), a global provider of a broad range of consulting services, today unveiled the results of its inaugural Ankura Joint Venture Index (AJVI). This first edition of the AJVI, which was created by Ankura’s Joint Venture and Partnership Practice, is a rigorous analysis that provides a snapshot of what happened during 2020 in the joint venture transaction class and the drivers shaping the global business landscape.

Joint ventures (JVs) and partnerships are used by companies, organizations and governments to stimulate growth and serve as key drivers of innovation. Measuring JV and partnership activity highlights new technologies, products, and markets to anticipate future growth or innovation, and also signals which technologies and markets are experiencing consolidation, stagnation, or decline. The development of an objective tracking system enables companies, organizations and governments to utilize, evaluate and review JVs and partnerships in a manner similar to the way they and the broader market are currently able to evaluate mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and private equity and debt placement transactions.

“Trends that have been building for a decade accelerated in the last 15 months,” said James Bamford, Head of the Joint Venture and Partnership Practice at Ankura and one of the authors of the AJVI. “Responding to the pandemic and other societal and market forces, it’s clear companies have had to move swiftly to reduce costs, shed assets and raise capital to remain competitive, while also seizing opportunities to ensure long-term growth, access to new markets and technologies and to meet intensifying demands for more sustainable operations. Increasingly, companies and executives are realizing the strategic value of JVs and partnerships – whether bilateral ventures or broad business ecosystems – and the results of our inaugural AJVI demonstrate this dynamic.”

The inaugural AJVI includes several indicators such as: (1) an analysis of material JV and partnership announcements related to a deal formation, restructuring or exit as an indicator of JV and partnership activity, and (2) an analysis of the impact of JV and partnership transaction activity on stock price performance as an indicator of partnership performance potential.

Key findings of the first-ever AJVI include:

• JVs and partnerships are central to the ongoing de-carbonization energy transition. The number of new renewable energy partnerships increased in 2020 as oil and gas companies, power and utility players, pure-play renewable companies and investors continued to form JVs and partnerships to enhance their competitive positioning.
• JVs and partnerships help drive new technologies. In 2020, JVs were critical for rapid innovation in healthcare and mobility. Prominent examples include the Pfizer-BioNTech partnership and AstraZeneca-Oxford University partnership to develop and bring to market their respective COVID-19 vaccines.
• There is clear correlation between partnership announcements and stock price. According to the AJVI, the stock market rewarded companies in 2020 for executing new JVs and other partnerships, reflecting investors’ growing appreciation for the potential of this asset class.

The inaugural AJVI can be viewed and downloaded here.