Dealcast: The M&A Podcast

“GPs are being run more like the businesses that they acquire,” said Justin Niessner, associate editor of the Asian Venture Capital Journal.
Consolidation among general partners is on the rise globally. Last year, BlackRock acquired HPS Investment Partners. Before that, the firm also acquired Global Infrastructure Partners in 2024.
Asia is primed for M&A among GP firms, partly due to the prevalence of founder-led firms in Asia and the need for a succession plan.
In this episode of Dealcast, Niessner joins Julie-Anna Needham to discuss the consolidation of GPs in Asia and why GPs and LPs may, or may not, find further integration attractive.
The episode dives into what GPs need to make a transaction successful and to make LPs comfortable, where it is happening in the market, and how the mega-sizing of firms may actually lead to the rise of more independent ones.

“There's no question that in some parts of the market, leverage has stretched significantly, and that's a real issue for some of those portfolios that we see out there,” said Alex Garnier, founding partner at NorthWall Capital.
In this episode Garnier joins Rachel Lewis, Mergermarket’s co-head of news, to discuss the growth of specialist credit in Europe.
NorthWall is an alternative private credit lender that specializes in financing situational complexity. In this Dealcast, listeners get a look inside NorthWall’s strategy, which employs a different approach to provide different returns compared to traditional private direct lending.
But what makes a situation complex? This episode discusses factors like market conditions, a complicated carveout, or a tight transaction timeline. Garnier and Lewis also tackle the current uncertainty in the market which has led banks and direct lenders to retreat and how that presents opportunities to be selective with underserved segments.

Despite rumors of political lobbying creeping into antitrust, “it’s a really good time for dealmaking here in the US.” That’s according to Kathy O’Neill, a partner in Fried Frank’s antitrust and competition department and former senior government official with 16 years of experience in the US Department of Justice (DOJ) antitrust division.
According to O’Neill, early and proactive interactions with the US antitrust agencies, the DOJ and Federal Trade Commission (FTC), can lead to smoother antitrust reviews. In her experience, constructive engagement on the merits has even led to the clearance of deals that were likely second request candidates.
In this episode of Dealcast, O’Neill joins Mergermarket’s senior US regulatory reporter Serafina Smith to discuss best practices to get deals through antitrust review during the second Trump administration.
This episode also addresses the agencies’ return to accepting merger remedies—especially structural relief—and the uptick of standalone enforcement by state attorneys general.

While deal volumes reach significant highs in the UK, the numbers are largely being driven by big deals with expensive price tags. But these big-ticket transactions may not be the tide that lifts all boats.
The lower-to-middle market segment in particular is seeing more muted deal activity. So why the surge of large-scale deals while the mid-market flounders? In this episode of Dealcast, White & Case partner and head of the firm's UK Public M&A practice Patrick Sarch joins Mergermarket’s global commentary editor John West to discuss what’s happening under the surface with the UK’s M&A landscape.
Transformational deals are certainly skewing the overall M&A haul, public and private volume together arriving at GBP 128bn year-to-date, of which just 25 deals account for GBP 110bn, according to Mergermarket data. In public M&A, three deals – Schroders/Nuveen, Intertek/EQT, and Beazley/Zurich Insurance Group – account for 90% of volume.
Smaller which deals have faced difficulties in the UK have had less spectacular progresss amid sponsor exit headaches, the fallout from “SaaSmageddon” and inflation pressures.
This episode explores: why buyers and sellers in the middle market are failing to see eye to eye on pricing, which particular deals are driving up the numbers, how the stagnating buyout class from 2020/2021 is impacting activity, and how the Iran war is threatening further inflationary risks on dealmaking.
Further insights will be discussed at Mergermarket’s UK M&A Forum on 23 June in London, where White & Case is lead sponsor alongside KPMG.

In this week’s Dealcast, Mergermarket’s head of global ECM, Samuel Kerr, joins John West, Mergermarket’s global commentary editor, to discuss how both M&A and ECM, particularly IPOs, are faring in Europe so far this year.
M&A on the continent has been off to a strong start with 1Q deal volumes, reaching around EUR 330bn, up 40% year over year. And while general equity capital markets are booming, IPOs, have stalled in reaction to the Iran war.
In this episode, Kerr and West explore the factors supporting M&A and hindering IPOs amidst severe geopolitical disruption. The two discuss which companies have made headlines, how sponsor exits factor into lagging IPO activity, how performances on the aftermarket have fared in Europe and comparatively in the US, and finally, when we could expect to see a rebound in listings.
All this and more in this week’s Dealcast.