Warner Bros bidding war and red hot M&A market has dealmakers working through holidays

By Dawn Kopecki and Anousha Sakoui

NEW YORK, Dec 22 (Reuters) - A flurry of multi-billion-dollar deals has bankers and advisers from Wall Street to Canary Wharf packing laptops adjacent to presents and informing household and friends their vacation vacations implicit the adjacent 2 weeks volition beryllium chopped short.

There person been $463.6 cardinal ​in mergers and acquisitions announced this month, 30% much than past year, including Trump Media & Technology Group's $6 cardinal merger with atomic fusion steadfast TAE Technologies, IBM's $11 ‌billion acquisition of information infrastructure institution Confluent and a bidding warfare betwixt Paramount Skydance and Netflix for Warner Bros Discovery, according to information compiled by Dealogic.

“This is the hunt and the finish, and we each bask ‌it," said Charles Ruck, a spouse astatine Latham & Watkins, which is advising Paramount connected its bid for Warner Bros. "I'm not telling anybody not to travel. I'm telling them, wherever you are, I mightiness request immoderate of your time."

Just this weekend, a radical of backstage equity firms led by Permira and Warburg Pincus inked a woody to bargain concern and accounting bundle shaper Clearwater Analytics Holdings for astir $8.4 billion, including debt.

“It's busy, and it’s truly broad-based … we're seeing a just magnitude of enactment crossed astir of our manufacture sectors,” said John Collins, planetary caput of M&A ⁠at Morgan Stanley.

WARNER BROS BIDDING WAR

This vacation play is shaping ‌up to beryllium 1 of the astir progressive successful caller years, according to interviews with astir a twelve bankers and ineligible advisers.

Investment bankers astatine Citigroup said past period was the busiest November successful years. Dealmakers from New York to London and Hong Kong accidental they are ‍trying to adjacent galore multi-billion-dollar deals earlier the shot drops successful Times Square connected New Year's Eve. As the C-suite gets much aggressive, respective large companies are looking to prosecute advisers earlier the extremity of the twelvemonth to tee up large deals successful 2026. Two dealmakers successful London and New York accidental they program to enactment done the holidays, portion immoderate are optimistic that they volition ​take disconnected Christmas Day and, fingers crossed, Christmas Eve too.

That whitethorn beryllium much hard for bankers, advisers and nationalist relations professionals moving connected the Warner Bros deal. The ‌bidding warfare keeps them adjacent to their phones and laptops this vacation season, with immoderate moving done Christmas. On Monday, Paramount revised its $108.4 cardinal hostile bid, which is being jointly financed by RedBird Capital Partners, with an extended deadline of January 21.