In this month’s article we discuss a few themes from the Bank Director’s 2023 Acquire or Be Acquired Conference along with some highlights of the sessions we attended. Over the years the conference has broadened its M&A offerings to focus on a combination of M&A, growth, and FinTech strategies.
The tussle involving Frontier Group Holdings, Inc. and JetBlue Airways Corporation over Spirit Airlines has been decided in favor of JetBlue. In this article we take a look at the fairness opinions rendered by Morgan Stanley and Barclays, then concludes by asking a pertinent question the market seems to have answered even if the board answered in a nuanced way.
In each “Meet the Team” segment, we highlight a different professional on our Family Law team. This segment we highlight Timothy Lee. Tim is the Managing Director here at Mercer and is a member of the firm’s board of directors.
In 2022, market performance for publicly-traded banks was more dispersed than in 2020 or 2021, when most every bank reported share price declines (2020) or increases (2021). In 2022, approximately 35% of public banks with assets under $10 billion reported share price gains. We examine some reasons for this diverging bank stock performance during 2022 in this article.
To celebrate a new year and everything that comes with new beginnings, the Mercer Capital Litigation Support Services Team has decided to start the year with a blog emphasizing the importance of the beginning of a family law engagement, defining the assignment.
The outlook for deal making in 2023 is challenged by significant interest rate marks, uncertain credit marks given a potential recession and soft real estate values, and the bear market for bank stocks that has depressed public market multiples. However, core deposits and excess liquidity of potential sellers is highly prized today given tight balance sheet liquidity and an inability to sell bonds to generate liquidity given sizable unrealized losses. A rebound in bank stocks and even a modest rally in the bond market that lessens interest rate marks could be the catalysts for an acceleration of activity in 2022 provided any recession is shallow.
For this quarterly update, we bring together a couple of strands of our medtech and device industry practice. This article looks back at 2022 and also looks ahead to 2023.
In August 2022, the SEC adopted final rules implementing the Pay Versus Performance Disclosure required by Section 953(a) of the Dodd-Frank Act. These rules go into effect for the 2023 proxy season and introduce significant new valuation requirements related to equity-based compensation paid to company executives. What does this mean, and how does it apply to you? What are the requirements, and why might there be significant valuation challenges involved? We discuss this and more in this article.
The U.S. bond market is undergoing its worst bear market in decades. In this article we provide commentary on bank bond portfolios after the third quarter 2022 earnings calls.
There has been a lot of discussion surrounding the impact of rising rates on bank bond portfolios and bank stocks as rising rates have resulted in large unrealized losses in bank bond portfolios. If subjected to mark-to-market accounting like the AFS securities portfolio, most bank loan portfolios would have sizable losses too given higher interest rates and wider credit spreads. In this article, we examine data from a survey of periodic loan portfolio valuations by Mercer Capital to observe recent trends in loan portfolio fair values.
In-person conferences are back in 2022 and so are we. Our professionals have been speaking at and attending numerous conferences, so we thought it a good idea to reflect on a few of these conferences and share selected PowerPoint decks with you. Why? Because there are valuable materials on valuation, forensic and financial topics included in these PowerPoint decks.
Fintech partner banks have underperformed the broader banking sector in 2022 in a reversal of the trend in 2021. For some banks, fintech partnerships have accelerated growth and created new income streams. However, bank partners also face unique risks. We examine considerations for community banks pursuing a fintech partnership strategy in this month’s BankWatch.
The medical device manufacturing industry produces equipment designed to diagnose and treat patients within global healthcare systems. Medical devices range from simple tongue depressors and bandages to complex programmable pacemakers and sophisticated imaging systems. Major product categories include surgical implants and instruments, medical supplies, electro-medical equipment, in-vitro diagnostic equipment and reagents, irradiation apparatuses, and dental goods.
In this article we outline five structural factors and trends that influence demand and supply of medical devices and related procedures.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought economic hardship to many. The second quarter of 2020 might go down as one of the quickest economic downturns ever recorded. However, in an effort to protect the economy, the Fed created an extremely hospitable environment for venture capital, and with the glaring supply chain issues, FreightTech became a cushy landing place for investor’s money. We have written about venture capital and FreightTech before, and it has only gotten bigger since then.
What is normal? A question we seem to have been asking ourselves for the last few years. When it comes to making sense of the “normal” in this new day and age, we cannot offer any advice there. But we can speak on the process and importance of normalizing financial statements for a business valuation.
Mercer Capital previously published articles on core deposit trends in August 2020 during the early stages of the pandemic and again in August 2021. In those articles, we described a decreasing trend in core deposit intangible asset values. In response to the pandemic, the Fed cut rates effectively to zero, and the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury reached a record low. While many factors are pertinent to analyzing a deposit base, a significant driver of value is market interest rates. As shown below, we find ourselves in a very different interest rate environment today.
In contested cases where a business interest comprises a significant portion of a divorcing couple’s net worth, it is common for one or both parties to retain a business appraiser to value the business. Post-divorce, if only one spouse retains an interest in the business, all else equal, a higher business interest value typically implies the other party will receive a greater share of the remaining marital assets, as compared to a lower business interest value. As we will discuss in this article, the facts and circumstances of the business interest being valued may reasonably support various assumptions when comparing two valuation conclusions.
Bond portfolios saw a significant increase in unrealized losses during 2Q22; however, investors seem to be looking past the issue, focusing instead on expanding NIMs for banks with significant non-interest-bearing deposit funding.
In this article we provide a broad overview of PPAs and then a deeper look into the pitfalls and best practices related to them.
Mercer Capital’s Litigation Support Teams is excited to share our newly published resource Navigating Tax Returns | Tips and Key Focus Areas for Family Law Attorneys and Divorcing Individuals/Business Owners. This piece is designed to help you better understand how to navigate tax returns on behalf of your clients.
Not only is a solvency opinion a prudent tool for board members and other stakeholders, but the framework of solvency analysis is ready made to score strategic alternatives and facilitate capital deployment.
With both inflationary pressures and interest rate risk causing volatility in the current and forecasted economic environment, both banks and credit unions may find themselves contending with uncertainty surrounding their capital positions. Stress testing can be an important tool to utilize in order to better understand how your bank or credit union is positioned to withstand a severely adverse economic scenario. In this article, we give an overview of the stress testing process, as well as what strategic benefits it may provide to your financial institution.
Directors are periodically asked to make tough decisions about the strategic direction of a company. Major acquisitions are usually one of the toughest calls boards are required to make. Buy-side fairness opinions have a unique place in corporate affairs because the corporate acquirer has to live with the transaction. What seems fair today but is deemed foul tomorrow, may create a liability for directors and executive officers. This can be especially true if the economy and/or industry conditions deteriorate after consummation of a transaction.
In March of 2016 Elon Musk was laying the ground work for the merger of Telsa, Inc. and SolarCity Corporation. This presentation looks at the issues raised by plaintiffs who alleged Musk orchestrated the deal to bail-out SolarCity, and how the Delaware Court of Chancery ruled on the issues on April 27, 2022 under the entire fairness standard rather than deferential business judgment rule.