What happened to “Merger Monday?”
August 7th, 2007, filed by Jessica Hall
Mondays just aren’t the same lately.
Instead of starting the week with a flood of merger announcements, Monday began with a trickle. Globally, only $7.4 billion in deals were announced on Monday, with only $1.4 billion in deals unveiled in the U.S., according to research firm Dealogic.
That marked the slowest Monday since the Memorial Day holiday on May 28, when only $8.4 billion in deals were announced, Dealogic said. The busiest Monday in the past four months — with $134.7 billion in deals — was April 23, when Barclays Plc unveiled its first takeover bid of $88 billion for ABN Amro, Dealogic said.
Instead of spending weekends negotiating deals, lately bankers said they have been focusing on closing the deals already on the table. The tightening of the credit markets, fears of hedge fund losses and the meltdown of some mortgage lenders have made it more difficult to complete some leveraged buyouts.
Debt for several meaty deals still must be sold, including the $26.4 billion purchase of First Data Corp. and the $31.8 billion buyout of TXU Corp. Today, the completion of the Sallie Mae deal was called into question when a source close to the buyout group told Reuters that the closing conditions may not be met.
While August is seasonally slow as many dealmakers escape to the Hamptons, the credit markets — not the beaches — are more to blame for the current slowdown, bankers said.
Still, despite the recent doom and gloom, merger volume continues to outpace last year’s record level. Global merger volume has hit $3.5 trillion so far this year, compared with $2.2 trillion a year ago, Dealogic said.
