IMAP PARTNER SPOTLIGHT — ALBIA CAPITAL (IMAP SPAIN)
Albia Capital (IMAP Spain) has consolidated itself as one of the most active M&A firms in the Spanish market, successfully closing 14 transactions last year. With a specialized focus on the Iberian market, the firm has developed extensive expertise in strategic sectors such as food & beverage as well as distribution companies, where its deep sector knowledge enables it to identify unique value opportunities.
We spoke with Pablo Gómez, partner at Albia Capital, who has participated in more than 20 M&A transactions since 2015, about Albia’s success despite geopolitical and economic pressures in Europe.
What specific sectors are experiencing the strongest growth in Spain, and what makes them so attractive for M&A right now?
In Spain, we could say that the sectors experiencing the most growth in M&A are digital technology and AI, renewable energy and infrastructure, manufacturing, hotel/tourism, and financial services. Digitalization leads with solid growth in revenues and employment, while the energy transition drives investments in solar, wind, and green hydrogen. Manufacturing shows expansion in production and employment, and tourism is repositioning towards luxury. Financial services are experiencing a boom in consolidation. These sectors stand out due to high structural demand, strategic synergies, investor interest from private equity, and support from European funds—consolidating them as key focal points for growth and investment.
What is your strategy for timing transactions when economic uncertainty creates hesitation in the market?
We live in a globalized and interconnected world in which political or economic changes that occur thousands of kilometers away can have a direct, and sometimes significant, impact on the local economy. This implies that, for relevant investment decisions such as acquiring a company, uncertainty has become constant.
That said, it is important to differentiate between strategic investment decisions and purely financial ones. Generally, if an investment decision is strategic and responds to key elements of a company’s development, our recommendation is that uncertainty should not stop the project, since it will allow the company’s growth to continue, very likely by exploring new synergies and market opportunities. In addition, proper deal structuring can help mitigate potential deviations that may arise as consequence of the elements generating that uncertainty.
On the other hand, if the interest in a transaction is purely financial, these risks will play a larger role in valuing the project, because there may not be other qualitative or quantitative elements in the investment decision that mitigate them.
For all these reasons, when we are on the other side of the table, advising our clients in a sale process, we consider it essential to bring candidates with different profiles and investment typologies into the conversation, since this maximizes the chances of achieving the best economic and strategic terms, reducing the risk that the transaction is discarded as a consequence of market uncertainty.
In which emerging or transforming industries are you identifying the best consolidation opportunities, and why?
Spain is a country with significant fragmentation across virtually all sectors. The average size of Spanish companies is 4.5 employees, below the European average (5.9) and below countries such as Germany (11.9) or France (5.3). This means consolidation opportunities are present in emerging sectors, but also in more mature ones where there is a lack of generational succession and significant potential to unlock synergies. At Albia, we have been investing in a proactive sector-specialization positioning, including: transport and logistics, healthcare, technology, food & beverage, and the energy transition, among others.
In 2025 we successfully advised on a total of 14 transactions, positioning us as one of Spain’s leading independent M&A advisors by number of deals. This marks a record in our 21-year history—reinforcing the positive growth outlook enabled by our market positioning, our commitment to sector specialization, and the differentiated global reach provided by IMAP.