'Very Difficult' Time on Deal Front: Citi's Ghiawadwala

Definitely, we are seeing a lot of activity with our clients as they try to navigate the environment, which just seems to be getting more and more intense on the macros around inflation, around interest rates, which are proving to be, you know, definitely higher for longer and, you know, clients eagerly awaiting when the cuts are finally going to come. But, you know, as you just mentioned, on the political side as well, lots of things for our clients to navigate. Disney, how much has this actually altered the view for mergers and acquisitions? We were speaking with Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, and he said it’s very difficult for companies to get any conviction to buy another company or merge at a time where a lot of things are being rejected in the name of national security concerns, the name of antitrust, the name of whatever. You can’t predict it. Are you seeing the same thing among your clients? Yeah, it’s it, it is a very, very difficult time on the deal deal front for companies to you know go about. And although we are seeing some deals close, you know, we’ve had some sell side opportunities at City and some of our clients, you know have have been able to go through the cycle. But you know, lots of things in the way exactly as you mentioned and and also with the high interest rates, you know, capital to fund the acquisitions are also, you know, another factor that is proving to be a sticking point for our clients that, you know, it’s not cheap anymore to buy another company. You’ve got to, you know, make sure that it’s really worth it, that the valuation, you’re not going to overpay and the valuations are going to be there to see you through kind of the medium in the long term. Tasima, a lot of people are talking about this week is a pivot point. We’re going to get the earnings of 178 of the S&P 500 companies. You focus on a whole host of smaller banks and smaller, excuse me, smaller companies that have individual challenges and might have an even better view in terms of the direction of travel, of both economic strength and inflation. Are the signs that you’re seeing consistent with this general feeling that we’re going to get a no landing with inflation that’s going to run hot for the foreseeable future? So, I mean, I, I think the 11 of the things that I think is interesting that we’re seeing with our clients is that their, their balance sheets are actually really, really quite strong for, for the vast majority of our clients. We’ve, you know, been supporting them as they think about diversifying. You know, although the environment is very tough, I think it’s also posing quite a lot of opportunities for clients as well. You know, they’re, they’re really thinking very, very strongly about their supply chains and how they make them more resilient, how they secure, you know, make, make them very, very secure as well. And I think, you know, things like near shoring, things like diversifying the funding environment for our supply chain. I think these are the opportunities that our clients are kind of playing into. So I I think it’s not all doom and gloom, quite frankly, where our clients are concerned.