Dealcast: The M&A Podcast

“GPs are being run more like the businesses that they acquire,” said Justin Niessner, associate editor of the Asian Venture Capital Journal. Consolidation among general partners is on the rise globally. Last year, BlackRock acquired HPS Investment Partners. Before that, the firm also acquired Global Infrastructure Partners in 2024. Asia is primed for M&A among GP firms, partly due to the preva...

“There's no question that in some parts of the market, leverage has stretched significantly, and that's a real issue for some of those portfolios that we see out there,” said Alex Garnier, founding partner at NorthWall Capital. In this episode Garnier joins Rachel Lewis, Mergermarket’s co-head of news, to discuss the growth of specialist credit in Europe. NorthWall is an alternative private credit...

Despite rumors of political lobbying creeping into antitrust, “it’s a really good time for dealmaking here in the US.” That’s according to Kathy O’Neill, a partner in Fried Frank’s antitrust and competition department and former senior government official with 16 years of experience in the US Department of Justice (DOJ) antitrust division. According to O’Neill, early and proactive interactions wit...

While deal volumes reach significant highs in the UK, the numbers are largely being driven by big deals with expensive price tags. But these big-ticket transactions may not be the tide that lifts all boats. The lower-to-middle market segment in particular is seeing more muted deal activity. So why the surge of large-scale deals while the mid-market flounders? In this episode of Dealcast, White &am...

In this week’s Dealcast, Mergermarket’s head of global ECM, Samuel Kerr, joins John West, Mergermarket’s global commentary editor, to discuss how both M&A and ECM, particularly IPOs, are faring in Europe so far this year. M&A on the continent has been off to a strong start with 1Q deal volumes, reaching around EUR 330bn, up 40% year over year. And while general equity capital mar...

“We can see every risk or dislocation as an opportunity.”  Although fundraising, exits, and investment have slowed, this is how Pamela Fung, a managing director and partner on Morgan Stanley's Private Equity Solutions team, sees the current state of private equity investment in Asia. Perceived risk has increased in the region in recent years amid C...

The SEC is somewhat unsurprisingly shifting “back to basics” under the Trump 2.0 administration, according to Edward Best, a partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher on the corporate and financial services team and co-chair of the capital markets practice. During the Biden presidency, the agency focused on technical violations and retrieved billions of dollars in settlements, whereas the current le...

“A land of opportunity” full of “hidden champions” across strategic sectors. That’s how Eurazeo co-CEOs William Kadouch-Chassaing and Christophe Bavière class Europe, as the Paris-listed sponsor eyes deployment opportunities from energy transition and defence through to tech-enabled services and healthcare. In this week’s episode of Dealcast, the co-CEOs engage in a wide-ranging discussion with Me...

As 2026 kicks off, many GPs are beginning to assess exits for assets they purchased at peak valuation and with cheap debt in the 2020/2021 period. Sponsor entrances for that period were just shy of EUR 300bn, representing the busiest year ever for M&A. Rachel Lewis, Mergermarket’s co-head of news in Europe, has compiled a data report looking at the situation with this vintage class now that ty...

Seema Hingorani, managing director and member of the Operating Committee at Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM) talks to Lucinda Guthrie, executive editor at Mergermarket in this episode of Dealcast marking International Women’s Day. Investing “where nobody’s looking” opens up the prospect of making a “boatload of money”, and when this means allocating to diverse teams allocators are chang...

Around the world, many LPs are looking to diversify away from the US' recent instability. So how are investors viewing Asia and what is happening on the ground? The Asian Venture Capital Journal’s (AVCJ) managing editor Tim Burroughs joins AVCJ’s associate editor Justin Niessner to discuss what is driving investors to diversify into Asia and what challenges they face in the region. In this Dealcas...

After the Trump administration revoked the 2009 Endangerment Finding that underpinned federal actions curbing greenhouse gases in February 2026, there is a sense that we are reaching a peak of anti-ESG sentiment. However, Professor Michel Driessen, director of Bayes Business School’s M&A Research Centre and chair of Queen’s Tower Advisory, argues environmental, social, and governance (ESG) iss...

"This merger of policy and antitrust is not specific to the US. It's a global phenomenon,” says Jenn Mellott, managing partner at Freshfields working in both Washington DC and Brussels. What began five years ago - with the Biden administration’s broadening of antitrust to consider more than just what is best for the consumer - has become an increasingly popular strategy around the world to serve p...

“For the last three years, did you know -- that the secondary market’s been larger than the IPO market in terms of transaction volume?” that’s what Moelis & Company Managing Director Paul Sanabria said to showcase the immensely increased popularity of secondaries over the last couple of decades. The secondaries market of the 1970s looked quite different than it does today, originating then as...

“You can be much more ambitious” in driving global M&A transactions given a vibe shift in agency approaches to merger control, says James Webber, Chemicals & Industrials sector lead and antitrust partner at A&O Shearman. Following the abandonment of the Biden-era neo-Brandeisian settlement in the US; an embrace of industrial strategy and resilience building at the European Commission (...

Dealcast host Julie-Anna Needham is joined by Head of Americas Energy Carlos Martinez to break down the Venezuela angle and the mining consolidation wave, while Global Commentary Editor John West examines the broader geopolitical backdrop – and why deep‑tier supply chain due diligence is fast becoming a critical value‑creation lever for corporates and private equity.

If successful, the initial public offers (IPOs) of OpenAI and SpaceX could help global equity capital markets (ECM) break records this year. In this week’s podcast, Sam Kerr, Mergermarket’s global ECM editor, sits with Dealcast host, Julie-Anna Needham, to discuss why the listings of the leading generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and spacetech companies are attracting so much attention. Ge...

“We’re about year three” in a seven-year M&A cycle that will see 2026 and 2027 sustain the astonishing deal growth seen this past 12 months. That’s the bold claim of Liz Claydon, global head of deal advisory and global sector lead for Life Sciences at KPMG. In this week’s Dealcast, Claydon joins Lucinda Guthrie, global executive editor at Mergermarket, to discuss how global CEOs have adjusted...

Reuben Miller, Mergermarket’s global chief regulatory editor, joins Dealcast host Julie-Anna Needham to discuss the complexities of Paramount's bid, which is one of the largest hostile deals on record. How could Paramount's attorney could prove instrumental in pushing its bid forward? How could Netflix improve its regulatory position? Whoever wins, what will be the impact on the media landscape an...

Patrick Harris, Mergermarket’s senior editor based in London, joins Dealcast host Julie-Anna Needham to discuss the complexities of the deal, including: Where the new Anglo Teck company could be domiciled and how that will be reconciled with each company’s strong national ties; How the Canadian government could push for more stipulations for the deal, like Canadian investment and job creation; Whi...

Justin Niessner, Associate Editor of the AVCJ, joins Dealcast host Julie-Anna Needham to discuss this year’s forum and its key takeaways, including: Which countries, like Japan and India, are seeing the most investor interest What makes Asia compelling to investors – including factors like increased urbanization, digitalization, and the rise of the middle class Which firms are investing in Asia, l...

In this week’s episode of Dealcast, Mergermarket Global Commentary Editor John West sits down with London-based BCLP private equity partner Perry Yam to unpack the Budget’s impact on the British sponsor scene.

Sam Kerr, Mergermarket’s global ECM editor and head of Mergermarket in EMEA, joins Dealcast host Julie-Anna Needham to discuss the global ECM outlook, including: Why the end of the US government shutdown may not lead to a flurry of new listings, potentially forcing IPOs to 1Q26; How the US markets have performed and which listings haven’t been able to maintain their outsized pops from their IPO da...

Arezki Yaiche, Mergermarket’s France-based bureau chief, joins Dealcast host Julie-Anna Needham to discuss the French political situation and its impact on the business community, including: How the political turmoil began when President Emmanuel Macron called a snap election in 2024 and why it has persisted; What items could be up for debate in the budget, like a possible end to an R&D tax re...

John West, Mergermarket’s global commentary editor and author of our weekly Continental Drift column, joins Dealcast host Julie-Anna Needham to discuss how corporates can navigate the new trade realities, along with other macroeconomic risks and opportunities. What is the real impact of First Brands and Tricolor on capital markets pipelines? How strong are the parallels between the boom in AI inve...