S&C M&A partner Melissa Sawyer talked to Financial Times about the sluggish start to global dealmaking in 2020. M&A activity is off to its slowest start in seven years, with less than half the activity seen by this time in 2019.
While the pipeline for M&A continues to be very strong, Melissa attributed the slower pace of announcements of mega deals in January to several factors. “The cumulative impact of the lack of confidence [around] high valuations, of regulatory scrutiny, or macroeconomic uncertainty and of the coronavirus … is [that] people are slightly more conservative,” she said. “And when you layer ‘slightly more conservative’ on a $100bn bet, it might make the answer no instead of yes.”
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