The challenges of COVID are making financing deals even trickier than normal. Top M&A bankers we have spoken with gave us their perspectives on what sellers and buyers should expect given all the uncertainty. “There are a lot of twists and turns today,” a mid-West managing director told us. “You may think the company you’re…
As we discussed last week in our special series on the new COVID-impacted M&A world, the volume of deal flow was off sharply at the onset of the crisis. But as deal makers adjusted to the new normal of business openings (and reversed openings) across the country, conversations are now back to deal processes. What…
This week we kick off a new series on COVID-impacted deal flow, with a look “upriver.” How has M&A activity been affected, and what should deal makers expect for the “new normal?” We spoke to select middle market investment banks about their experiences so far in this coronavirus season. The beginning of the crisis caught…
We continue our special series on COVID-19 impacted healthcare, with a private equity conversation. Our guest is the partner of a NY-based firm. He has over two decades of experience investing in healthcare businesses. How did the current crisis unfold for you and your firm? “For the first couple of weeks it was a 100%…
Two years ago, we issued a special report on healthcare trends, speaking with bankers, lenders, and private equity investors [link]. Last week we revisited one of our sources, a top healthcare investor, on the current state of affairs in the industry. “Everyone’s an infectious disease expert now,” he told us in an interview. “We also…
We continue our special series on how the coronavirus is affecting the healthcare industry. At the heart of this pandemic is the doctor/patient relationship. Much has been written about heroic efforts by first-responders in the early days of the crisis. Information gleaned on the front-line by those experiences has contributed greatly to a better understanding…
Healthcare has been ground zero for COVID-19 since the virus took hold in early March. How the industry has reacted, and how lenders and equity investors are dealing with this new world order, is the subject of this special series. To get started, we spoke to a friend who runs the healthcare capital markets desk…
“Time to go to cash,” we announced one night at the dinner table. It was early June. The Dow had nearly climbed back to its February 12 peak. The moment seemed ripe for a personal portfolio move. “What does that mean?” our six-year old daughter asked. “It means Daddy wants to put our money in…
In our just-completed series on high-yield bonds [link], we conclude that issuer and investor activity has largely been driven by technical factors: near-zero interest rates, the Fed’s support of fallen angels, and skewed-to-worse ratings for leveraged loans. If this is the environment in the liquid market, how should investors be thinking of the illiquid market,…
What has been described as “massive” new issuance in the high-yield market led to the most deal volume for May ($48 billion) since 2003, according LevFin Insight’s Matt Fuller. As our Chart of the Week depicts, cash inflows to bond funds totaled over $35 billion in the past nine weeks, per Refinitiv Lipper. That includes…