00:00So, Ted Pick, he's feeling amped up. Do you feel the same?
00:03Oh, very much so. Ted actually said he's feeling pretty amped up,
00:06and I think he could take the adjective pretty out and just say he's amped up.
00:09He's got a reason. We had green shoots coming through, Katie, last year.
00:13We set some records at the end of the last year on the value component of M&A deals,
00:18not as much on the volume. The number of deals that got done were still down year on year in 2025,
00:23but we had more deals conclude and sign in the last quarter of 2025 a value of over $10 billion than ever in history.
00:32All the economic criteria are in place, right?
00:36We haven't had runaway inflation that people feared as a result of the tariffs and Liberation Day, right?
00:41We haven't had, I mean, we've had the geopolitical things even today, right?
00:45But we've still had capital markets resurge today, even with the framework helped us there.
00:50We have cost of capital that's very tolerable, available capital.
00:54So everything's in place. There's tremendous momentum and confidence in the marketplace.
00:58So I think we're going to have a record-breaking 2026. I really do.
01:01And I think in the past, Katie, we've had these multi-year runs of M&A.
01:06The difference this time around is I think the multi-year run that we're about to start here
01:10is going to have an even higher ceiling.
01:13Interesting. And, I mean, you mentioned that in 2025,
01:15we really saw the return of mega deals, if you want to call them that.
01:19Is that something that's sustainable, or do you chalk that up to maybe pent-up demand,
01:23given that for a while we weren't seeing deals get signed?
01:26I'd say yes and yes. I'd say yes and yes.
01:29There's so much that's pent-up, particularly on the sponsor side, Katie.
01:32The strategics have been moving along.
01:34The sponsors have been, as we know, chomping at the bit and ready to go.
01:37But I'd say yes and yes because there's pent-up demand.
01:40But then there's also been an unfurling and unlocking.
01:42Remember, FTC Chair Ferguson said in the fall of 2025,
01:47the FTC needs to get out of the way and get out of the way quickly to clear transactions where they can.
01:53Early termination approval from an antitrust perspective of transactions was reinstituted,
01:59right, after it was taken away during the Biden administration.
02:01And we now have regulators who are saying,
02:04how can we get deals cleared rather than, should a deal just be approved or blocked?
02:09I wonder if you could talk a little bit more of that because it's interesting, too.
02:11I mean, going back to Ted Pick, one of his deputies, I thought said something really pressing a couple weeks ago.
02:16He was talking about loose financial conditions, fiscal conditions, loose monetary policy conditions.
02:23But he said that the real driver, in his view for deals, has been what he said is basically easier regulatory conditions.
02:30And he kind of framed it around this idea that that's kind of the third leg of the stool that's really been driving things.
02:35Do you think that the Trump administration, based on what we know publicly, is going to stick by that?
02:40I do think they will.
02:41And I do think that observation is absolutely right.
02:44It's hard to bet against America when there's opportunity in front.
02:49Regulation over regulation inhibits opportunity in front.
02:54So we have an America right now, by the way, this past year, 50 percent of global dealmaking connected to the United States of America.
03:01That's the highest percentage in 30 years.
03:04OK, so we have an America right now, Romain, it's sort of like sitting on the hilltop, right?
03:09You've got great visibility, predictability, because, you know, if you take a transaction to the FTC or the DOJ,
03:15they're going to look for a way to clear it if they can.
03:17It may have behavioral remedies.
03:19It may have structural remedies.
03:21But the advisors can anticipate and predict that.
03:24And as soon as we give C-suite individuals predictability to do dealmaking,
03:29they can go transfer their business through AI, which they greatly want to do.
03:34They can reshape their business globally according to their wishes, right?
03:37And they can keep pace with their peers.
03:40So predictability is the key.
03:41And I think this administration, rightly, in my view, has made that more of a thing in the M&A world.
03:47When we talk about M&A deal activity, and more importantly, not just the value, but obviously the number of deals,
03:52is that going to be across the board in terms of sectors?
03:54Or do you think it's going to be there are going to be certain sectors that are really going to take a bigger concentration of those deals?
03:58I think every single sector that involves technology, in other words, every single sector, is going to lift.
04:05I think there are 14, 15 sectors by most of the banks and the law firm advisors.
04:10But there's really one sector, and that's the imperative of technological change, right?
04:15We are in an environment right now.
04:16I've renamed M&A to be M&AI, right?
04:19Because we're in this new imperative where you're looking to the left and you're looking to the right,
04:24and you've got FOMO and all the – right?
04:26You keep moving, and M&A is the great propeller to embrace technological change.
04:32Well, we only have about a minute or so left with you, but you mentioned FOMO.
04:35And I was watching an interview you gave on CNBC at the end of the year where you were talking about how there's a big psychological element when it comes to M&A.
04:42So you think about pent-up demand, you think about FOMO.
04:45Is there a potential here that things get a little bit frothy and the quality of deals maybe goes down a little bit?
04:52Well, the thing that can happen, and as you turn the page and look forward, right, Katie,
04:56the thing that can happen is things get so frothy that then the valuations shoot up, right?
05:01And then that becomes its own inhibitor because then people feel like they're overpaying for assets, right?
05:06So that can slow things down a little bit, but only a little bit.
05:09I mean, the momentum piece, the psychological piece, what our sisters and brothers are doing around us in a sector is such a great imperative.
05:19And then there's that time-old tradition, that component of the human condition, which is momentum and confidence.
05:26And it's a visceral thing, and you can feel it.
05:28That's why Ted spoke the way that Ted spoke in Davos, right?
05:31That's why you heard Trump before he even got to Greenland.
05:34It was a customary Trump maneuver.
05:36He started out his speech by iterating all the superlatives about the U.S. economy, where inflation is, right?
05:44The $20 trillion of investment in the United States of America, right?
05:48Unprecedented.
05:49That, in my view, was all a setup for him to go make his ask that he wants Greenland.
05:55And within hours, he's communicating that he has a framework deal.
05:58It's quite remarkable.
05:59It's quite remarkable.
06:00It's quite remarkable.
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