Outlook for M&A 2021

The Mergers & Acquisitions Reseach Centre (MARC) at the Business School (formerly Cass) hosted its eleventh annual Outlook for M&A event on Monday 25^th January.

More than 130 participants were in the virtual audience as Professor Scott Moeller, Director of MARC, welcomed students, alumni, practitioners and journalists to this year’s discussion, which was chaired by Susan Kilsby, Chair of the MARC Advisory Board.

Ms Kilsby was joined by experts from major sponsor organisations, including: Giovanni Amodeo, Chief Research Officer at Acuris; Matt Wells, Vice President Global Product Marketing & Strategy at SS&C Intralinks; Cathal Deasy, Head of M&A for EMEA at Credit Suisse; and Lina Saigol, Head of Corporate News, EMEA, Barron’s.

The event reviewed the last 12 months in the M&A market, highlighting the impact of the pandemic before a positive spike in activity during the latter quarter of the year, and outlined trends for 2021.

Among topics discussed by the panel were patterns of Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) compared with acquisitions and IPOs across the year, continued activity by activist investors, growth in protectionism, the significance of China and whether it was a good time for students to seek a career in M&A.

Ms Kilsby said she enjoyed chairing the panel:

“It was a pleasure to lead such an insightful and important discussion with some of the top M&A experts. Events like this demonstrate MARC’s commitment to bringing together industry and academia to provide thought leadership in this important field.”

Professor Moeller said it was an engaging discussion:

“The Outlook for M&A is an excellent opportunity for students, alumni and guests to learn from leading industry figures and gain key insights into the status of the mergers and acquisitions field.

“2020 was a particularly challenging yet interesting year for M&A which saw a great start, then a slump in the middle of the year as the pandemic hit, followed by a very strong upturn at the end of the year. The panel predicted a relatively good year for 2021 overall, with volumes of activity proportionate to full-year 2020.

“We were grateful to welcome such a strong panel and look forward to seeing what the year ahead actually holds in store for the market.”

Watch a full video playback of the Outlook for M&A 2021 event.

Read more about the Mergers and Acquisitions Research Centre (MARC).

Find out more about events at the Business School (formerly Cass).