After a measured few years, mergers and acquisitions activity has regained momentum in South Africa. The country in fact led the continent in deal value in 2025, accounting for roughly 35% of Africa’s total M&A value, while inbound deal value rose by over 40% and outbound activity increased by nearly 85% year on year.
Each deal reflects growth and is celebrated in the media and across industries as such, but it also places new demands on internal systems and teams. Finance teams in particular are being asked to integrate new businesses into reporting environments that were never designed for this level of complexity.
Transactions such as Woolworths’ acquisition of in2food and Mr Price’s expansion into Europe through the purchase of NKD Group point to a broader trend where we see group structures becoming more layered and demanding.
“Deal activity is often viewed through a strategic or commercial lens, but the operational reality is that every acquisition introduces a new level of reporting complexity,” says Alwyn Pretorius, GM at Infinitus Reporting Solutions. “By the time a deal is signed, the pressure shifts almost immediately to how quickly and accurately the new entity can be reflected in group numbers.”
When growth outpaces systems
Pretorius says that each acquisition brings with it a set of variables that complicate consolidation. “Many South African finance teams are still working across a mix of legacy platforms, spreadsheets and partially integrated tools. Introducing a newly acquired business often means adding yet another system into the mix, with little standardisation between them,” he says.
When organisations operate multiple legal entities, inconsistent systems create fragmented data estates that finance teams must manually align before any group view can be produced. Different charts of accounts, fiscal calendars and currencies require time‑consuming mapping and reconciliation, and reliance on spreadsheets remains common because legacy systems lack seamless integration capability. In many cases this manual work stretches close and consolidation cycles, introduces risk of error and diverts teams away from analysis to data preparation.
Then there are structural differences. Entities may operate in different currencies or follow different financial year-ends. Even within South Africa, inconsistencies in reporting formats and processes can create friction, and those differences can then multiply across borders.
The result is more fragmented data and finance teams are required to reconcile and consolidate information manually, often under tight reporting deadlines. What should be a straightforward view of group performance becomes a time-intensive exercise in alignment.
The visibility gap
Group CFOs and finance directors need a consolidated, accurate view of performance across all entities, which is particularly critical in the months following an acquisition when leadership is assessing whether the deal is delivering on its strategic intent. However, many teams are working with systems that cannot easily support comparative views across entities with different systems and operational processes. Producing like-for-like reporting, tracking performance against forecasts or even generating consistent management reports can take days rather than hours.
This creates a visibility gap at the exact moment when clarity is most needed. Decision-making slows, risk increases and opportunities to respond quickly to underperformance or inefficiencies are missed.
A shift towards automation
As deal activity accelerates, the limitations of traditional reporting approaches are becoming harder to ignore, with growing recognition among enterprises that consolidation is a strategic imperative to the success of M&A activity.
Automated group reporting solutions are increasingly being brought into the conversation, particularly those that can integrate multiple ERP systems, handle multi-currency environments and accommodate different financial year-ends without extensive manual intervention. This includes locally developed platforms like Finnivo, which are designed to support complex, multi-entity group structures while reducing reliance on manual processes.
Automation reduces the risk of error, shortens reporting cycles and allows teams to focus on analysis rather than data preparation. It also creates a consistent reporting framework that can scale as new entities are added.
Keeping pace with the deal cycle
M&A activity does not slow down to accommodate reporting limitations. Deals are executed when opportunities arise, and integration timelines are often aggressive. In line with this, finance teams are expected to keep pace, delivering accurate group insights even as systems and processes are still being aligned.
“This is where the gap between growth and capability becomes most visible, because organisations that continue to rely on manual consolidation or fragmented systems will find it increasingly difficult to keep up, particularly as their structures become more complex,” adds Pretorius.
The current wave of M&A activity in South Africa is a clear signal that growth strategies are evolving, and the underlying finance infrastructure needs to evolve with them. Group reporting systems that can adapt to complexity, rather than struggle against it, are becoming essential. In the end, it’s the ability to see the full picture, quickly and accurately, that ultimately determines whether that growth delivers value.
