Jake Bullen has been quoted in the article “Economic Uncertainty Threatens to Stall M&A Activity,” published in the Globe & Mail’s Report on Business.
Writes Jeff Jones: “Unpredictability on the trade and economic fronts threatens to temper Canadian merger and acquisition activity in 2019, as corporate buyers reassess the risks of making big deals.”
Says Jake: “We are a very trade and foreign investment-sensitive country and sometimes the political headwinds, trends, vicissitudes around us have an outsized impact on the M&A market…. Even before the Huawei arrest, we were seeing a tail-off in Chinese investment.”
Jake also notes that domestic mid-market-size deals were hot in 2018, and that should play out next year. Despite the political and trade risks, Canada is still seen as a stable place for such activity, especially privately-held targets: “I think we’ve still got a lot of companies performing very well in their sectors, from tech to advanced manufacturing to consumer products. And I think the exchange rate continues to entice US buyers.”
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