The banks in play in European M&A

Investors are pushing bank CEOs to produce growth. Some are now touting their ability to wring cost savings from IT, capital management and the rationalization of wholesale businesses after big mergers. National regulators are losing their power to block cross-border deals. We are almost at the point, Peter Lee reports, where every big bank is in the firing line.

THIS SUMMER, THE head of the European financial institutions group at one of the pre-eminent global investment banks – a veteran adviser on many bank mergers and acquisitions – was having dinner with a group of fund managers. The topic of conversation was not one of his own deals but a smaller transaction – Barclays’ bid for a majority stake in Absa.

Did the fund managers really think, he asked, perhaps just a little mischievously, that it was a good idea for the UK bank to be investing £2.6

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