Four out of ten UK M&A advisers spend between 30-50 per cent of their time on administrative tasks while working on deals, according to new research.

Four out of ten UK M&A advisers spend between 30-50 per cent of their time on administrative tasks while working on deals, according to new research.

For its Autumn monitor, workflow management specialist IntraLinks surveyed more than 300 M&A professionals across Europe. It found that 80 per cent of all respondents claimed that more than a tenth of their time was spent dealing with the administrative burden, while 44 per cent invested around a third of their time.

The findings also indicated that 70 per cent of those surveyed see the offline Q&A process in transactions as overly time consuming, while nearly a third describe it as “painful”.

Andrew Pearson, managing director of EMEA at IntraLinks, commented: “Thirty per cent of respondents believe physical data rooms will be obsolete within two years. This is no surprise – they are often outdated and lack flexibility compared to online versions, which provide a secure space for documentation, available wherever and whenever it’s needed.”

He added that the entire process needs to be simplified with automated submission and Q&A tracking online to speed up deal-making.