UK domestic deals rose to £51billion from £25.4billion in 2016 as deals between British groups rose from 1,480 to 1,681 – the highest level since 2008.

GVC, the online gambling company bought Ladbrokes Coral for £3.9billion and shopping centre operator Hammerson set up an acquisition of its rival Intu properties for £3.4billion.

Nick Cline, mergers and acquisition (M&A) partner at law firm Latham & Watkins, believes that Brexit has acted as a main driver for these mergers and that the M&A activity will remain robust in 2018. 

Jan Skarbek, managing director of UK banking and broking at Citigroup, backs this opinion.

Mr Skarbek said: “I think there will be more deals next year.”

Mr Cline added: “There are a lot of corporates out there in the UK who are seeing the changing landscape and as a result are even more focused on what they’re going to do to be tomorrow’s leaders.”

Philip Noblet, HSBC’s co-head of global banking also believes that the landscape of Brexit has lead to companies “bulking up” and buying each other other or joining with other businesses. 

Still, a severe lack of big scale M&A deals means that the overall volume involving British companies remained at a lower rate compared to that of 2015, when it totalled £448.6billion. 

That year saw beverage and brewing company Anheuser-Busch Inbev’s £81.5billion acquisition of FTSE 100 brewer SABMiller. As well as oil and gas company Royal Dutch Shell £32.3billion acquisition of competitor BG Group.

Mr Noblet added: “It’s hard to see how any more of the really big deals are going to happen going forward without there being quite significant competition issues.”