Latest news with #LucindaGuthrie
CNBC
30-06-2025
- Business
- CNBC
M&A deals hit 20-year low in first half of 2025: Mergermarket
M&A deals hit a 20-year low in the first half of this year with 16,663 deals announced, according to Mergermarket. Despite that, deal volume actually rose - up 25% to $2 trillion, buoyed by a flurry of mega deals across U.S. tech, Chinese banking and Japan's auto sector. Lucinda Guthrie, Head of Mergermarket, joins Silvia Amaro to discuss the group's H1 M&A report.
Yahoo
19-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Wall Street deals in 2025? AI rules.
Wall Street's hopes that 2025 would be a banner year were abruptly cut short after the deals market froze up in April. But as the first half of the year winds down, the mergers and acquisitions market looks not as bad as investors feared. Bankers can thank AI for that. Corporations and private equity firms aren't letting up on their push to capture the artificial intelligence wave, and it's not expected to slow down. "Anything that's sheltered from tariffs in a shifting and evolving sector is where you're going to see the activity right now, and AI is somewhere with that, where there is an absolute race," Lucinda Guthrie, head of data provider Mergermarket, told Yahoo Finance. Between the beginning of January and June 17, the number of US-targeted mergers and acquisitions is down by roughly 18%, according to Dealogic. But the total value of all of this year's deals is up 10% compared to the same period in 2024. Much of that added volume is coming from AI-related deals where "the traditional tech giants all now need to do something," Guthrie said, adding that "although not necessarily clear-cut," these same firms have been anticipating a smoother approval process from antitrust regulators. From Meta's (META) $14 billion acquisition of Scale AI last week to the $8 billion purchase agreement Salesforce (CRM) struck with AI-powered data platform Informatica (INFA) in late May, some of the biggest recent deals have been AI-focused. But that was the case even before the Trump administration rolled out sweeping "reciprocal" tariffs on April 2. In fact, seven of the 15 largest US M&A deals so far this year have been about positioning for AI, according to Dealogic data. The two biggest came in March with Google's (GOOG, GOOGL) all-cash acquisition of New York-based cloud security platform Wiz for $32 billion and Japanese firm SoftBank's (9984.T) agreement to lead a $40 billion fundraiser of ChatGPT maker OpenAI. It hasn't just been software companies either, according to a first-half deals report from PwC. Companies in industrials, utilities, and even private equity are doing AI deals. "Whether it's the advent of AI and the whole ecosystem behind AI, not just the technology and the language models, but the data centers, the energy, getting the energy to the data centers, all the [telecommunications] that goes around that, there's a tremendous amount of change," PwC US deals platform leader Kevin Desai said in a Friday press briefing. Following Constellation Energy's (CEG) $16 billion merger agreement with Calpine Corporation in January, Houston-based NRG Energy (NRG) made moves last month to double its energy capacity with a $12 billion announcement to buy 18 Texas and East Coast natural gas power plants. Both power suppliers pointed to forecasts for rapidly growing demand for energy of all kinds as companies build out their AI tools and services. Constellation framed its deal as "creating the right company at the right time." NRG CEO Larry Coben said in a May press release that the US is "in the early stages of a power demand supercycle." It's far from rosy in other corners of the M&A market. Smaller companies can't as easily forecast or absorb the potential costs of President Trump's tariffs, making it far trickier to justify a deal. About 30% of companies said they paused or revisited pending deals due to tariffs, according to a PwC executive survey from late May. Some of Wall Street's biggest investment banks weighed in earlier this month about their expectations for second quarter investment banking results at a Morgan Stanley conference in New York. Their feedback was mixed. The second quarter did start "slow, really pausing in a big way," Morgan Stanley CEO Ted Pick told investors, adding, "I do think investment banking, specifically, is a tale of two quarters." "Look, there is a lot of anxiety," Citigroup head of banking Viswas Raghavan said. Citigroup expects its second quarter investment banking fees to be up in the "mid-single digits" compared to the same period last year. But big AI deals, at least, aren't showing signs of slowing. And that may be the saving grace for dealmakers. David Hollerith is a senior reporter for Yahoo Finance covering banking, crypto, and other areas in finance. Click here for in-depth analysis of the latest stock market news and events moving stock prices Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
Yahoo
19-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Wall Street deals in 2025? AI rules.
Wall Street's hopes that 2025 would be a banner year were abruptly cut short after the deals market froze up in April. But as the first half of the year winds down, the mergers and acquisitions market looks not as bad as investors feared. Bankers can thank AI for that. Corporations and private equity firms aren't letting up on their push to capture the artificial intelligence wave, and it's not expected to slow down. "Anything that's sheltered from tariffs in a shifting and evolving sector is where you're going to see the activity right now, and AI is somewhere with that, where there is an absolute race," Lucinda Guthrie, head of data provider Mergermarket, told Yahoo Finance. Between the beginning of January and June 17, the number of US-targeted mergers and acquisitions is down by roughly 18%, according to Dealogic. But the total value of all of this year's deals is up 10% compared to the same period in 2024. Much of that added volume is coming from AI-related deals where "the traditional tech giants all now need to do something," Guthrie said, adding that "although not necessarily clear-cut," these same firms have been anticipating a smoother approval process from antitrust regulators. From Meta's (META) $14 billion acquisition of Scale AI last week to the $8 billion purchase agreement Salesforce (CRM) struck with AI-powered data platform Informatica (INFA) in late May, some of the biggest recent deals have been AI-focused. But that was the case even before the Trump administration rolled out sweeping "reciprocal" tariffs on April 2. In fact, seven of the 15 largest US M&A deals so far this year have been about positioning for AI, according to Dealogic data. The two biggest came in March with Google's (GOOG, GOOGL) all-cash acquisition of New York-based cloud security platform Wiz for $32 billion and Japanese firm SoftBank's (9984.T) agreement to lead a $40 billion fundraiser of ChatGPT maker OpenAI. It hasn't just been software companies either, according to a first-half deals report from PwC. Companies in industrials, utilities, and even private equity are doing AI deals. "Whether it's the advent of AI and the whole ecosystem behind AI, not just the technology and the language models, but the data centers, the energy, getting the energy to the data centers, all the [telecommunications] that goes around that, there's a tremendous amount of change," PwC US deals platform leader Kevin Desai said in a Friday press briefing. Following Constellation Energy's (CEG) $16 billion merger agreement with Calpine Corporation in January, Houston-based NRG Energy (NRG) made moves last month to double its energy capacity with a $12 billion announcement to buy 18 Texas and East Coast natural gas power plants. Both power suppliers pointed to forecasts for rapidly growing demand for energy of all kinds as companies build out their AI tools and services. Constellation framed its deal as "creating the right company at the right time." NRG CEO Larry Coben said in a May press release that the US is "in the early stages of a power demand supercycle." It's far from rosy in other corners of the M&A market. Smaller companies can't as easily forecast or absorb the potential costs of President Trump's tariffs, making it far trickier to justify a deal. About 30% of companies said they paused or revisited pending deals due to tariffs, according to a PwC executive survey from late May. Some of Wall Street's biggest investment banks weighed in earlier this month about their expectations for second quarter investment banking results at a Morgan Stanley conference in New York. Their feedback was mixed. The second quarter did start "slow, really pausing in a big way," Morgan Stanley CEO Ted Pick told investors, adding, "I do think investment banking, specifically, is a tale of two quarters." "Look, there is a lot of anxiety," Citigroup head of banking Viswas Raghavan said. Citigroup expects its second quarter investment banking fees to be up in the "mid-single digits" compared to the same period last year. But big AI deals, at least, aren't showing signs of slowing. And that may be the saving grace for dealmakers. David Hollerith is a senior reporter for Yahoo Finance covering banking, crypto, and other areas in finance. Click here for in-depth analysis of the latest stock market news and events moving stock prices Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
M&A is slowing in US but accelerating worldwide during new Trump era
US dealmaking is down in the new Trump era but accelerating in other parts of the world. The volume of announced US mergers and acquisitions as measured in dollar value fell 5.7% for the year through April 28, to $586.5 million, when compared with the same period last year, according to Dealogic data. That is the slowest start for US M&A in two years. On the other hand, deal volume outside of the US posted its best year to date result since 2022. Announced mergers in the rest of the world surged 43% in dollar value through April 28 from the same period a year ago, to $702 million. US dealmaking had a tepid stretch in April as President Trump's "Liberation Day" tariff announcement triggered widespread uncertainty about the economy and ushered in a period of extreme volatility for markets. Some companies put deals on hold as they waited for greater clarity about the path ahead. On April 9, the president paused many of the Liberation Day duties for 90 days to give countries time to negotiate new trade deals with the US. "M&A is like a barometer of business confidence, and people are feeling uncertain and the changes are very hard for boardrooms to work out," Lucinda Guthrie, head of data provider Mergermarket, told Yahoo Finance last week. "A number of processes have been pulled or paused" through April ahead of planned public announcements, Guthrie added. US M&A volume fell 8% during the month through April 28, according to Dealogic. Merger volume across the rest of the world gained 2%. The subdued start to 2025 is a disappointment for many on Wall Street who hoped the president's economic agenda would unleash a new dealmaking boom. Goldman CEO David Solomon told Bloomberg on Tuesday that "policy actions to date have raised the level of uncertainty to a degree that I don't think is healthy for investment and growth, and I think it's going to be important that we get more clarity." There have been signs of some activity, however. The two largest deals of the year so far — Alphabet's (GOOG) $32 billion agreement to acquire Wiz and Sycamore Partners' move to take Walgreens private — happened in March, according to Dealogic, as did eight of the other top 15 deals. And things did improve in February and March, before Trump's April 2 announcement. In fact, the merger advisory business at Goldman Sachs (GS), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), and Morgan Stanley (MS) climbed 5% collectively during the first quarter from a year ago, to $2.8 billion. Some US corporations also don't have the luxury of waiting for trade policy to settle, forcing them to get more creative in deal structuring. Boeing (BA) last Tuesday announced plans to sell portions of its digital aviation software unit to private equity firm Thoma Bravo for $10.55 billion, all in cash. Earlier this month, US semiconductor firm Intel (INTC) announced plans to sell a 51% stake in its programmable chip unit, Altera, to private equity firm Silver Lake. Silver Lake is deferring $1 billion of the purchase to be paid out over the next two years, according to an SEC filing. "If the level of uncertainty grows from here, yes, you won't see the same amount of capital markets activity," Goldman's Solomon said during a Tuesday Bloomberg interview in Oslo, Norway. "But my own belief is things will settle down." David Hollerith is a senior reporter for Yahoo Finance covering banking, crypto, and other areas in finance. Click here for in-depth analysis of the latest stock market news and events moving stock prices Sign in to access your portfolio
New York Times
13-02-2025
- Automotive
- New York Times
Honda and Nissan Scrap $50 Billion Merger Plan
A $50 billion merger between Honda Motor and Nissan Motor, which would have established one of the world's largest auto groups, has been called off. In December, Japan's second- and third-largest automakers said they were exploring plans to combine their operations with the goal of sharing costs and jointly developing next-generation vehicles. Both companies said in a statement on Thursday that they were walking away from talks. The swift reversal underscores a growing recognition in the industry that sprawling auto alliances, often relied upon in the past to build scale and increase market share, may not be the answer for automakers scrambling to catch up with rapid technological changes. Traditional automakers in Japan, the United States and Europe are facing mounting competition from newcomers like Tesla and China's BYD, which have established a commanding lead in electric vehicles and technologies that enable semiautonomous driving and remote updates. As the auto industry shifts toward vehicles that resemble 'robots on wheels,' merging two giants to try and catch up was 'just automakers going back to what they know, rather than embracing change,' said Lucinda Guthrie, the head of Mergermarket, a data provider. Ford Motor and Volkswagen, for instance, teamed up a few years ago to work on electric vehicles and autonomous driving. The companies ultimately shut down their self-driving car initiative, and have derived few benefits from collaborating on electric vehicles. Honda had a partnership with General Motors, and currently sells two electric sport utility vehicles, the Honda Prologue and Acura ZDX, that are manufactured by G.M. But in 2023, the companies said they would not extend their partnership beyond those two models. Even at the outset of its talks with Nissan, Honda's top executives faced internal resistance to merging with another automaker. Nissan is restructuring its operations after a significant profit decline, and Honda's managers were concerned about Nissan's financial health. They also questioned the potential benefits of a deal. Honda eventually proposed a take-it-or-leave-it plan to make Nissan its subsidiary. Nissan rejected the offer, as it diverged from earlier ideas of creating a holding company with both brands as subsidiaries. Nissan's leadership felt the proposal undervalued the company. Ms. Guthrie of Mergermarket said she thought that Nissan could benefit from seeking a new partner, potentially outside the traditional automotive realm. For both Nissan and Honda, 'the pressures they face wouldn't have changed with the merger,' Ms. Guthrie said. 'You either embrace the future, or you stick with what you know,' she added. 'Maybe the breakup will be what it takes.' One possible suitor for Nissan is the Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn. Young Liu, the chairman of Foxconn, said on Wednesday that the company would consider buying a stake in Nissan, though the preference would be to simply partner with the automaker.
