00:00In the last six weeks, we've signed two deals in Europe, and it happens to be the case that right now we've got four deals under exclusivity all in Europe and a fifth.
00:09That's a bilateral discussion heading toward exclusivity.
00:12So the level of activity that we're experiencing is not just a future renaissance.
00:16It feels like it is an incredibly active time and moment for us in Europe.
00:20It's fascinating because we talked to some of your peers as well who said actually the pipeline in Europe predates some of this volatility.
00:25The timing is just coincidental.
00:27But I am curious, there is also this added momentum that you're seeing from funds around the world that are suddenly saying,
00:32if you don't want to allocate new money to the U.S., you allocate it to Europe.
00:35I'm curious, though, what that does to things like valuations in Europe, what that does to deal absorption in Europe.
00:41Is that a concern?
00:42Well, it could be over the longer term, but in the near term, people feel like on the back of a relatively slow deal-making environment in Europe over the last few years,
00:49that there's a lot of potential.
00:51There's a lot of latent assets.
00:52There's a lot of inventory sitting on the shelf in the private equity community writ large.
00:56And as you pointed out, there's going to be fiscal stimulus in Europe.
00:59There's going to be a rotation away, potentially, from the U.S., from a deal-making perspective.
01:03It all stands to benefit Europe in the deal-making here.
01:06What gets in the way of that?
01:08What gets in the way of that?
01:09Well, if we have heightened volatility from whatever source that affects some of what's happening in Europe,
01:15that's going to create a valuation gap.
01:18Uncertainty and volatility is the enemy of deal-making.
01:20If whoever decides to throw some uncertainty in the mix, that could press pause.
01:25But on a relative capital market basis, people are more enthusiastic about the capital markets here
01:29and the prospects for both taking companies public.
01:32And the financing markets have been relatively stable across both sides of the pond.
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