(Bloomberg) -- Ralph Schlosstein, chairman emeritus at Evercore Inc., said there’s a significant amount of pent-up activity in dealmaking though some of the announced transactions could be under threat from economic uncertainty.
“There’s definitely some pickup in the announced activity if you look at the first eight months or so this year,” Schlosstein said in a Bloomberg Television interview on Friday in London. “The active dialog with clients is way up.”
The remarks by the co-founder of BlackRock Inc. echoed with the optimism from Barclays Plc and Morgan Stanley that more deals are on the cards. About $564 billion worth of mergers and acquisitions have been announced since the beginning of July, a stronger start to a second half compared to the previous two years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
In Europe, DSV A/S on Friday agreed to buy DB Schenker, the logistics unit of Deutsche Bahn AG, in a €14.3 billion ($15.9 billion) deal. Blackstone Inc. is considering options including a sale of its majority stake in visa outsourcing and technology services firm VFS Global, Bloomberg News has reported.
While dealmaking activity is on the rise, Schlosstein also said any economic uncertainty could still affect transactions that have been announced. He’s hoping the Federal Reserve will cut interest rate by 50 basis points next week, more aggressive than the anticipated 25 basis points, as the balance of risks has shifted to unemployment growing faster.
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