A Conversation with Accenture on the Current M&A Landscape

Peter Hall interviews Stefan Shaffer, our New York Partner about Leverage Capitalization. They covered:   - What factors should a business owner consider when contemplating an outright sale of the business or a leveraged recap - In what ways can altering the capital structure of a business through the addition of debt create further value for shareholders? - What are you currently seeing in the market in terms of interest in leveraged recapitalisation? - For a business that might be contemplating going down this path do you have thoughts on what they should be considering if they do so?

The Oil & Gas sector was one of the hardest-hit sectors last year. However, the industry forecasts show demand will begin to exceed supply in 2021. I had a chance to talk to Gary Papay, our sector lead from North Carolina, to get his insights and outlook for 2021. Listen to the episode to learn more about the Oil & Gas sector.

When is the right time to sell?   It might not be as far into the future as you thought.   We interviewed Jim Afinowich, our Principal from Phoenix, Arizona to get his outlook on M&A in the US. While conventional wisdom holds that you should delay selling your business until the economy bounces back, a year or two from now, two factors could put that wisdom to the test:   First, the economy is bouncing back more quickly than you think.  Second, tax hikes under the Biden Administration could offset whatever gains you hope to achieve by delaying your sale.

In this episode, Stefan Shaffer our Partner from New York discusses: The current state of the private market—general liquidity conditions The demographics of the lending community—who is doing what?  Pandemic fallout—how badly were issuers impacted?  M&A activity vs. Recap activity - expectations respecting a Biden administration, next round of stimulus, etc.

The engineering sector is a key focus for Eaton Square. In recent days, we had the opportunity to meet with the CEOs or heads of M&A with ten of the world’s leading engineering firms to understand how COVID is impacting their M&A and operational plans.

I asked Taylor Devine, Principal from Washington DC and a fellow of the M&A Source, on his insights about the US M&A market. We talked about the leading indicators of where the US market is headed.

Many of our clients are keen to understand if there are still buyers in the market and how has COVID impacted the M&A process. To help understand what this means for the business transformation and IT services sector, I interviewed Thomas Griffin, Managing Director for Mergers and Acquisitions at Accenture to get his perspective.

The biotech and diagnostics industry have evolved significantly in the past few months with the impact of COVID. To get a better perspective of the state of this sector, I spoke with our biotech experts Caroline Popper, M.D. in the US and Bob Atwill in Australia.

In these unprecedented times, we know how quickly things change, especially in the finance sector. Here’s an update of how debt and equity markets in New York evolved.

In this episode of Eaton Square Perspectives, Stefan Shaffer, Managing Partner and Principal from New York, discusses how the current crisis has affected US Private Debt.