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The digital-health sector in 2020 and 2021 was the hottest part of healthcare. We spoke with top bankers and dealmakers to understand what comes next as the market cools. The pace of digital-health deals has generally slowed since the highs of 2021. Founders can thank rising interest rates, a punishing stock market for digital-health companies, and a minor banking crisis to name just a few reasons for that. Here are the healthcare industry's go-to investment bankers, in alphabetical order, and their predictions for which trends may push digital-health deals forward after a funding slump.

☆ Digital health faces the same hurdle as fintech: Get profitable or get lost.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Digital health, once the darling of the healthcare industry, is having a tough go of it. After a pandemic-fueled surge when health services and offerings utilizing tech were prioritized, digital health has come back down to earth. The similarities between digital health and fintech are striking. For both fintechs and digital health, this year has served as a reminder that they're only partly tech companies. Click here for predictions from 16 bankers and dealmakers on the future of digital health.

REUTERS/Aly Song/File PhotoSYDNEY/HONG KONG, May 8 (Reuters) - Alibaba's (9988.HK) logistics arm aims to raise up to $2 billion via a listing in Hong Kong likely early next year, sources with knowledge of the matter said, bolstering hopes for a capital markets revival in the Asian financial hub. Cainiao, which has started work on the IPO, is looking to raise between $1 billion and $2 billion in Hong Kong, according to three sources. IPO PROSPECTSDealmakers hope that Cainiao's potential IPO, expected to be followed by market debuts from some of the other Alibaba units in the near-term, could help revive sluggish fundraising activities in Hong Kong. About $1.5 billion has been raised from IPOs in Hong Kong so far this year, marginally above the $1.2 billion raised in the same period last year, according to Refinitiv data. ($1 = 6.9149 Chinese yuan renminbi)Reporting by Scott Murdoch in Sydney and Julie Zhu in Hong Kong; Editing by Sumeet Chatterjee and Jamie FreedOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Wells Fargo is pushing for quantity over quality in its private bank
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Which brings us to a fantastic story about Wells Fargo's decision to reorganize how it serves its ultra-rich clients. And while many understood some changes were necessary, nearly everyone agreed the bank didn't go about it the right way. Read more about Wells Fargo's chaotic reorganization of its private bank. It's the latest move in what has been an active 12 months for the bank's tech division. The accounting firm had signed off on financial statements from Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and First Republic, the Financial Times reports.

☆ How 2 longtime Warner Bros. execs and a veteran media banker plan to invest $360 million in sports, live experiences, and proven IP
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Lucia Moses | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Alex Iosilevich, Kevin Tsujihara, and Jeff Bewkes raised $360 million to invest in media, entertainment, and gaming. "Today it's television, tomorrow it's virtual reality," Alex Iosilevich, a longtime media banker and investor, told Insider. The trio announced April 27 that they raised $360 million for their first private equity fund to invest in media, entertainment, and gaming companies. Bewkes was chairman and CEO of Time Warner; he left as part of AT&T's 2016 acquisition of the company. With the market for subscription-based streaming services getting saturated, streaming companies will have to look more aggressively for new audiences through overseas expansion, ad-supported tiers, and new entertainment content.

☆ Three media veterans just raised $360 million to invest in sports, live experiences, and proven IP — trends that are 'permanent' even as streamers struggle for profits and consumers churn
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Lucia Moses | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Alex Iosilevich, Kevin Tsujihara, and Jeff Bewkes raised $360 million to invest in media, entertainment, and gaming. "Today it's television, tomorrow it's virtual reality," Alex Iosilevich, a longtime media banker and investor, told Insider. The trio announced April 27 that they raised $360 million for their first private equity fund to invest in media, entertainment, and gaming companies. And Iosilevich's resume includes more than a decade of media dealmaking at UBS, Deutsche Bank, and Barclays. With the market for subscription-based streaming services getting saturated, streaming companies will have to look more aggressively for new audiences through overseas expansion, ad-supported tiers, and new entertainment content.

SYDNEY, April 27 (Reuters) - Chinese spirit maker ZJLD Group's (6979.HK) shares opened 17% lower in their trading debut on Thursday, after it completed the largest new share sale in Hong Kong this year. The KKR-backed company raised $675.2 million last week in the biggest new share sale in Hong Kong since CALB Group Co (3931.HK) raised $1.3 billion in October. ZJLD shares opened at HK$9 compared to the issue price of HK$10.82 each. MedSci Healthcare Holdings (2415.HK) shares dropped 1.1% on Thursday when its shares also debuted in Hong Kong after it raised $77 million last week. Institutional investors subscribed for 3.9 times the amount of ZJLD shares on offer in that tranche, according to the firm's filings, which was above many other Hong Kong IPOs this year.

☆ When Megamergers Fall Apart
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Lazaro Gamio | Lauren Hirsch | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Lazaro Gamio andBritish antitrust regulators on Wednesday blocked Microsoft’s $69 billion bid to buy the gaming giant Activision Blizzard, threatening to kill the deal entirely. The ruling raises a broader question: How often do deals fall apart after they’re signed? So far this year, just 33 out of 3,347 bids to buy an American company have been withdrawn. In 2022, nearly 12,000 such deals were announced, totaling $170 billion, and 142 were withdrawn. A transaction can fall apart for any number of reasons, but when regulators step in to stop a merger, it’s generally because they have concerns the deal would have a detrimental effect on consumers, or the country at large.

☆ Goldman Sachs M&A team doesn't get out of bed for less than $10 billion
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Goldman Sachs' M&A team operates under a similar mandate, albeit with a few more zeros. Why bother stressing over 10 $1 billion deals when you can just do a $10 billion deal? It's not just the M&A market that's facing issues. The bank has held the top spot on the year-end M&A league tables for decades, but it is hearing footsteps. More on Goldman's M&A strategy amid an industry drought.

☆ Guggenheim lures Greenhill's dealmakers to expand into Europe, sources say
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Andres Gonzalez | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

LONDON, April 20 (Reuters) - U.S. investment bank Guggenheim Securities will begin its European expansion by hiring four senior bankers from Greenhill, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. Guggenheim already had a small group of bankers covering European deals, one of the sources said. The Wall Street bank has snapped up Greenhill & Co.'s telecoms and digital infrastructure team, led by Jonathan Dann and Pieter-Jan Bouten, the sources said on condition of anonymity. Investment bankers Charlie Evans and Achille Del Pizzo will also move to Guggenheim, where the team will begin in May. Guggenheim, which according to Refinitiv ranked 39th among global M&A advisers in 2022, in the first quarter advised on Pfizer Inc.'s $43 billion deal to acquire Seagen Inc.

☆ Canadian dealmakers expect low-carbon shift will drive mining M&A
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Maiya Keidan | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

TORONTO, April 20 (Reuters) - Canadian advisors to mergers and acquisitions (M&A) expect a shift toward low-carbon technologies and government subsidies for them will spur dealmaking in mining for years to come and some are already gearing up for it. Clients are hiring mining people within dealmaking teams, and boutique M&A advisory firms are adding talent, mostly in mining, he said. Canada this year expanded an investment tax credit to equipment needed by mining companies - and any other companies in the EV supply chain - to extract or process critical minerals. For copper and nickel deals, it was the best quarter on record since at least 1990, the data showed. "Mining is one of those sectors where you really want to be prepared for the inevitable market pickup."

[1/2] A view shows the logo of Credit Suisse on a building near the Hallenstadion where Credit Suisse Annual General Meeting took place, two weeks after being bought by rival UBS in a government-brokered rescue, in Zurich, Switzerland, April 4, 2023. UBS and Credit Suisse declined to comment. What's more, UBS doesn't tend to lend to potential clients as Credit Suisse has often done, a move that can persuade some customers. "There are clearly parts of Credit Suisse that have had a bad culture," UBS Chairman Colm Kelleher told reporters on March 29. UBS ranked 14th advising on mergers globally last year, behind 11th placed Credit Suisse, according to data compiled by Dealogic.

☆ Real-Estate Agents Face a Reckoning As Housing Market, Home Sales Slow
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( James Rodriguez | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +14 min

Just as the housing market goes through booms and busts, so do the ranks of real-estate agents. This has left real-estate agents fighting over a dwindling pool of listings. That makes the job of a local real-estate agent trickier and more nuanced than it was a year ago. "What makes a good real-estate agent and what makes a successful real-estate agent have almost no crossover." She joined a women's support group for real-estate agents on Facebook, where she found many others were experiencing similar challenges.

☆ China baijiu maker ZJLD Group seeks up to $812 million in Hong Kong's largest IPO in 2023
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-16 | by ( Scott Murdoch | Thomson Reuters | Scott Murdoch Has Been A Journalist For More Than Two Decades Working For Thomson Reuters | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

There is also a so-called "greenshoe" option to sell another 73 million shares that could raise an extra $122 million, according to the filings. Baijiu is considered China's national liquor and is the world's most consumed liquor, according to ZJLD's prospectus. Its market share in China is greater than wine's market share in France and beer's market share in the U.S., according to its documents. KKR owns a 16.2% stake in the company, which would fall to 13.8% after the IPO, Hong Kong's largest since Chinese lithium battery maker CALB Group Co (3931.HK) raised $1.3 billion in October. ($1 = 7.8493 Hong Kong dollars)Reporting by Harshita Swaminathan; Editing by Tom HogueOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

April 11 (Reuters) - Mark Shafir, one of Citigroup Inc's (C.N) top dealmakers, is retiring after a career spanning over three decades during which he advised some of the world's largest corporations on several landmark deals. Shafir, who has led Citi's global mergers and acquisitions unit since joining the bank in 2008, will stay on till mid-May to help with the transition, according to an internal memo sent on Tuesday by Tyler Dickson and Manuel Falco, Citi's global co-heads of banking, capital Markets and advisory. Cary Kochman, who has served as co-head of global M&A at Citi alongside Shafir since 2017, will continue to lead the franchise. "(Mark) has been one of the lead drivers of our M&A business and has played a central role developing the franchise, which grew significantly under his leadership," Dickson and Falco said in the memo. Shafir was instrumental in shaping Citi's M&A franchise during his tenure and advised on several landmark transactions.

☆ Reader mailbag: From M&A and MBAs to Elon Musk and bitcoin, all your questions answered
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-07 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

It's easier to leverage misinformation for personal gain within the world of finance than perhaps any other industry. I'm not the type to suggest the only real information you can get on the markets is from established news outlets. Do you think the legacy media is fearful of Elon Musk's new Twitter? I just think the discourse on Twitter is very different from what you'd find on a media website. My position on bitcoin, and the wider digital-currency ecosystem, is that it's too often a solution looking for a problem.

Some senior dealmakers at China's third-largest brokerage by market value will see an even steeper cut of two-thirds to their 2022 bonuses, said one of the people. The trend has accelerated as employers cut pay and perks in response to the government's "common prosperity" rhetoric. MILDER CUTSA senior investment banker in China could earn three million to 10 million yuan ($445,000 to $1.48 million) a year in total remuneration, excluding stock incentives, industry sources have said. By way of comparison, Wall Street bonuses fell 26% last year to average $176,700, versus a record 2021, showed a report last month from New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. Besides remuneration cuts, some investment banks have asked staff to avoid displays of wealth such as by uploading photographs to social media of expensive meals or overseas trips, industry sources said.

☆ Unstable markets drag Canadian M&A, debt issuance to four-year low
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( Maiya Keidan | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The collapse of regional banks Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in the U.S. tightened credit market making funding difficult for deals. As the banking crisis abate and many global central banks move to the sidelines to assess the impact of rapid interest rates hikes, bankers are, however, betting that appetite for dealmaking would return. Canadian M&A volumes totalled $34.7 billion in the first quarter, down 52.3% from a year ago, with dealmaking off to the worst start since the same period in 2020. Some market participants noted the second quarter is already off to a stronger start, with the mining sector gathering momentum. Abeed Ramji, head of Canadian Debt Capital Markets at TD, said the lack of issuance from banks impacted the corporate debt market, adding that global markets had become more expensive for financing.

[1/3] Prime Minister Tony Blair (R) embraces Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern after all parties reached a historic peace agreement April 10, 1998. The peace has utterly transformed the region, largely ending three decades of bitter violence that killed 3,600. "Nothing's ever irresolvable" said Blair, summing up the stubborn optimism many developed working in Northern Ireland at the turn of the millennium. Nationalists, who are mostly Catholic, say Northern Ireland was wrenched from the EU in a UK-wide vote even though its smallest region voted 56% to 44% to remain. "There is an exhaustion and frustration," at the DUP's repeated objections, said Ahern, Irish prime minister from 1997-2008.

[1/2] Ethernet cables are seen in front of Rogers and Shaw Communications logos in this illustration taken, July 8, 2022. Rogers' deal for Shaw was politically sensitive due to the sky-high wireless bills Canadians pay, which are among the highest in the world. Yet, the competition bureau failed to block the merger, losing their protracted battle when a federal court dismissed the case. Now, dealmakers worry the government could intervene in other politically sensitive M&A. "There are not a lot of things people in competition law disagree on.

And that has the impact of postponing some announcements," said Anu Aiyengar, global head of M&A at JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N). M&A volumes dropped 44% to $282.7 billion in the U.S. and 70% to $81.87 billion in Europe. Reuters Graphics"Having a well-functioning financing market is a critical ingredient for M&A. Global M&A volumes in Q1 2023LACK OF CONFIDENCEThe depressed market valuations also presented an opportunity for prominent activist investors to launch new proxy fights, with dealmakers anticipating a boost to M&A volumes from activist campaigns in the coming quarters. "Inflationary pressures aren't subsiding as fast as people expected; there's still a lot of geopolitical tensions, and in a lot of ways, the disruption in the financing market is intensifying," Langston said.

☆ Alibaba hands parched dealmakers a glass half-full
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Antony Currie | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Then New York- and Hong Kong-listed Alibaba (9988.HK) revealed it was creating six independently run businesses. That will keep dealmaking teams busy for months if, as CEO Daniel Zhang envisions, multiple listed companies emerge from the $250 billion parent. And if a breakup is good for Alibaba, they can dust off pitchbooks for its domestic rivals. Follow @AntonyMCurrie on TwitterCONTEXT NEWSAlibaba CEO Daniel Zhang said on March 29 that he hopes multiple listed companies will emerge from the group. “I hope there will be multiple listed companies emerging from the Alibaba system, and that they will continue to nurture their own sons and daughters, and cultivate more listed companies”, Zhang said, according to the South China Morning Post.

☆ Busting through the brick wall barricading M&A: podcast
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Jeffrey Goldfarb | ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

NEW ORLEANS, March 28 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Worldwide merger activity is down by about half this year to $470 bln, stymied by tough financing conditions, assertive trustbusters and more. In this Exchange podcast from New Orleans, JPMorgan’s head of M&A Anu Aiyengar debates downbeat dealmakers and the pockets of optimism. Listen to the podcastFollow @jgfarb on TwitterSubscribe to Breakingviews’ podcasts, Viewsroom and The Exchange. Editing by Sharon Lam and Thomas ShumOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

☆ Why big investors like Carlyle and Ares are zeroing in on Hollywood and sports deals — and driving private credit in media to new highs
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Rebecca Ungarino | Reed Alexander | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

And Ares raised $3.7 billion for a fund last fall geared specifically toward sports, media, and entertainment investments across private debt and private equity. Unlike private equity investing, where managers take stakes in companies or buy them, private credit investors lend to businesses and make money on interest payments. (Private investment firm KKR's media, entertainment, and sports portfolio includes Insider parent company Axel Springer.) Carlyle's $146 billion credit arm has also provided capital to Clair, a media tech company that specializes in live production services and audio products. The strategists said driving that uptick are private credit defaults that include so-called softer forms of default, like breaching a loan's terms and conditions, along with private credit portfolio companies having generally lower ratings and less diversified businesses.

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