Deals: Creatures of the Credit Crisis

In our M&A Roundup for the week ended Oct. 5, every transaction worth more than $1 billion involves a flailing financial firm. It doesn't take a very close examination to see that North American dealmaking is becoming a creature of the credit crisis — in more ways than one. Again this week, the largest transaction in the seven-day period grew directly from the flurry of high-level negotiations designed to save one or another of the nation's once-mighty financial institutions. But beneath that, the second tier is populated with smaller and smaller deals, continuing a disturbing trend for the merger-and-acquisition set. Last week came the "bailout fallout" in its purest form: Wells Fargo's $15.1-billion offer for a weakened Wachovia — followed by two related Mitsubishi deals for Morgan Stanley and the disposition of a Lehman... [read full story]