Australia’s M&A trends 2026 in retail, consumer & experiences

Australia is a great real-time example of that story, especially when you broaden “retail & consumer” to include hospitality, leisure, travel and tourism, where experiences and technology are converging fast.

Here are five themes we think will shape boardroom conversations in 2026.

Globally, we see a world where deals are less about volume and more about fewer, bigger, higher-conviction moves.

You can see that same selectivity in Australia. Buyers are leaning into assets where the strategy is obvious: scale platforms, defensible categories, or real capability acquisition. Dollarama’s agreed acquisition of The Reject Shop is a good local marker of confidence in well-positioned value retail.

The implication is simple: good businesses will still trade, but the market is rewarding businesses with a very clear path to margin, resilience, and growth.

One of the most useful ways to describe demand right now is that it’s increasingly two-speed: households are staying disciplined on everyday spend, but they’ll still pay up for things that feel worth it, especially experiences.

Australia’s deals and situations reflect that. Value retail is drawing interest (again, think Reject Shop). At the same time, premium leisure assets are attracting large pools of capital, Blackstone’s move for Hamilton Island is a strong signal that destination-quality experiences still matter. Food assets are also attracting interest from equity investors – especially where they have a protein, clean-food or export led growth strategy.

Consumer demographics also play into the relative attractiveness of business models – the recent interest rate rise in Australia could mean those players who cater to a younger (still at home) or older (mortgage free with deposits) customer could see more resilience in the near term.

If you’re in the “middle” of discretionary retail, the message isn’t gloomy, it’s just sharper: you need a differentiation story beyond “we have stores”. 

PwC’s global lens is clear on portfolio transformation, selling what’s non-core or subscale, and reinvesting into what fits the strategy (or buying capabilities you can’t build quickly enough).

In Australia, you can see that mindset in both corporate and sponsor playbooks. Premier Investment’s divestment of their Apparel Brands portfolio to Myer is a great example of what might be non-core to one is a margin and synergy opportunity for another. And on the sponsor side, several scaled consumer assets are reported to be lining up for exits, Made Group (a TPG sponsor-backed FMCG business) being an obvious ones that keep appearing in market coverage.

This tends to produce a steady stream of carve-outs, platform exits and “situations” deals and those are often the most interesting (and complex) opportunities.

“Better-for-you”, health and wellness, beauty and pet care remain magnets for investors globally, and Australia is no exception.

Locally, that shows up in a few ways. Made Group (better-for-you beverages) and Vitaco (supplements/sports nutrition) are both widely reported as being prepared for sale processes.

The nuance is that buyers aren’t underwriting “category tailwinds” the way they did a few years ago. They’re underwriting longer term consumer shifts and strong operating systems: manufacturing and supply chain discipline, channel mix, pricing architecture, loyalty economics, and working capital control.

PwC’s global themes highlight that tech, platforms and AI are becoming part of the competitive baseline. 

That dynamic is particularly evident in travel and experiences. Australian situations like Webjet, including its public disclosures around indicative approaches, continue to highlight that travel platforms are increasingly valued for distribution, data, and their ability to convert demand efficiently. And on the tourism-ops side, the announced agreement for Journey Beyond to acquire the operating assets of Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia is a reminder that the “experience” side is also intensely highly operational where labour, stakeholder stewardship, capex, and service quality matter just as much as brand. 

The common thread: the winners are treating experiences as an operating model and a technology model.

One thing that keeps coming up in real deal conversations: in many consumer transactions, the CEO plan is part of the investment thesis, not something you solve after signing. 

In a more selective market, value creation usually comes from repeatable levers, trading discipline, cost-to-serve, supply chain, network optimisation, and smarter customer acquisition/retention. The businesses that can execute those levers consistently (and credibly) are the ones that attract attention, and often attract it faster. 

If 2025 was a year of “reset and caution”, 2026 feels like the year where confident buyers and management teams start asking a more practical question: 

What capability are we missing — and should we build it, buy it, or partner for it?