STORY: :: Lazard CEO says he expects a surge in
dealmaking momentum to continue into next year
:: New York
:: December 11, 2024
:: Lananh Nguyen, U.S. Finance Editor, Reuters
“Thinking about the deal landscape and you’re looking at green lights for certain industries, sectors, types of deal sizes versus red lights for maybe some of the tech focused deals, where are you seeing green lights? Where you seeing red lights?”
:: Peter Orszag, CEO, Lazard
“Well, the whole distribution has shifted more green light. So that’s the first thing to say. The second thing to say is we were already seeing a lot more momentum of private equity coming back onto the playing field and that’s for a whole variety of reasons, built up dry powder, portfolio companies that were getting a little long in the tooth in terms of being held for a significant period of time. And so you’re seeing a lot of private equity activity starting to ramp up.
But in addition to that, and this is different since the election, I think there were a lot of large transactions that were being like informally discussed that now are more in ‘let’s see if we can really make this happen,’ and that’s pretty much across the board. It’s not specific to any particular industry. It’s just rationally it made sense to wait and see what happened in the election before proceeding. And now that there’s clarity, there are many more discussions occurring.”
:: Lananh Nguyen, U.S. Finance Editor, Reuters
“What about red lights? Where are you going to spend less time because you don’t think things are as viable?”
:: Peter Orszag, CEO, Lazard
“Again, I think the whole distribution has shifted. There are sectors that are relatively disadvantaged by this shift, but that then may mean more restructuring activity. So I wouldn’t say there are any, you know, stop signs or red lights. It’s just the type of interactions with clients are going to vary by sector in terms of whether it’s liability management or an M&A deal or financing. But across the board, we see more activity.”
Wall Street executives have expressed optimism that the incoming Trump administration will usher in deregulation and more openness to mergers and acquisitions. The bullish views come as investment banking activity recovers from a two-year dry spell.
