Dealmaking in the financial services industry had been booming
prior to COVID-19.
M&A activity into early 2020 was notably strong, including
in asset management, payments fintech, insurance, banks and related
loyalty partnerships, and international bancassurance. For example,
in Q4 2019 alone, Canada saw almost $11B of deals in this
space1. With the
past 7 months of M&A activity having shown a levelling-off, we
are now seeing dealmaking return, and there is good reason to
believe it will continue.
The financial services industry faces notable complexities:
margin compression, expense pressures, IFRS 9 angst, acceleration
of digitization, capital sensitivities, anticipation of the
implementation of IFRS 17, and volatile performance of AUM are just
some examples. These complexities often, however, come with
corollary opportunities, including M&A opportunities: as an
example, in late summer Bloomberg reported: "a
majority of Banks are planning major divestments
