Investment bankers don’t get paid to be pessimists. Throughout the current slump in takeovers, mergers and acquisitions advisers have said a recovery was around the corner, awaiting a stronger U.S. economy, rising stock markets or an end to the European debt crisis.
All three of those conditions have now been satisfied, yet dealmaking has remained stagnant as CEOs continue to worry about the viability of the economic recovery. The final three months of 2013 saw announced takeovers slide by almost a third from a year earlier even as the outlook improved in Europe and North America, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
