When it comes to M&A showdowns in the heart of Auckland, Simpson Grierson head of corporate & commercial Kevin Jaffe has a bit of a quick draw.

The year 2008 was a bonanza one for Simpson Grierson, with deals ranging from  New Zealand Crown's NZ$700m (A$550m) buyback of Toll NZ's rail business and Kiwi aspects of the BG-Origin Energy takeover bid (A$13.8bn) , to the Matariki Forests sale. It was also the only Kiwi firm to make it onto the mergermarket Top Australasian M&A league table -  at number 12.

"Last year was a great year and we are still very busy in the M&A sector. There is, however, a lot of uncertainty and it's hard to tell what the market landscape will look like, but the biggest restriction is still the difficulty in obtaining credit," he said.

Although there may not be so many private equity buyers, acquisition interest will remain strong from trade buyers with funds readily available, and deals under the NZ$100m (A$78.5m) mark would be most common for the next 12 months, he said. Jaffe gave the example of agribusiness ABB Grain's recent acquisition of New Zealand stockfeed maker NRM (A$31.7m), which his fellow partner Rob McLean recently acted on.

Less-contested M&A deals in the market are also expected to attract trade buyers, said Jaffe, as they are sometimes deterred by highly competitive bid processes.