Morgan Stanley Chief Executive Officer Ted Pick
(JAN 23): Pent-up demand for mergers and acquisitions, particularly among private equity firms, is poised to spur a surge in deal activity, Morgan Stanley Chief Executive Officer Ted Pick said.
“Part of the dilemma is that the vernacular of whether we’re really moving with animal spirits is whether we see a bunch of M&A prints,” Pick said Thursday in an interview with Bloomberg Television at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
He cited private equity as an “important catalyst,” adding that “we’ve been below trend line in the M&A market, we talk a couple years from now, I think we’ll be at trend line or higher.”
Pick has been saying for months that the industry is on the cusp of a multiyear investment-banking cycle, and said last week that Morgan Stanley’s pipeline for mergers and acquisitions is the highest in seven years.
Wall Street has embraced President Donald Trump’s second term since he won the election in November, seeing his pro-growth agenda as good for the finance industry. JPMorgan Chase & Co’s Filippo Gori, co-head of global banking, said Wednesday from Davos that the new administration “has clearly brought the animal spirits back to the market.”
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