Trump Plans Have Deal Makers Dreaming Big ($100-Billion-Cash-Takeover Big)
NEW ORLEANS — It wasn’t just cocktails on Bourbon Street or lucky breaks at the blackjack tables that contributed to the buoyant mood of the deal makers who gathered here last week. President Trump — and his support for lower taxes and lighter regulations — also had something to do with it.
At a gathering of the nation’s top mergers and acquisitions lawyers and bankers, the consensus was that under the Trump presidency, deal making should boom.
Lower taxes and less regulation, the thinking goes, should contribute to strong stock prices. And when the markets are up, companies are more likely to strike big deals. Finally, the pro-business Trump administration, most deal makers believe, is likely to take a forgiving view when it comes to antitrust matters.
Taken together, it was enough to lift the spirits of the lawyers, bankers and other advisers who attended Tulane University’s mergers conference last week.
Officially known as the Corporate Law Institute, the event is the year’s pre-eminent gathering of mergers advisers, a Davos for the deal maker set. For decades, top bankers and lawyers from Goldman Sachs; Cravath, Swaine & Moore; and other firms have come to the conference, in good times and in bad.
Lawyers who attend earn legal credits (several lawyers said they eagerly awaited a panel discussion on the arcane matter known as shareholder appraisal rights, a topic that makes nonlawyers’ eyes roll). But the real purpose of the event is to network, whether over butter-laden gulf fish at Galatoire’s or sherried turtle soup at Commander’s Palace or at the high-roller poker tables at Harrah’s.
This year’s gathering had more than 600 attendees, setting a record. And the general agreement throughout the crowd attending presentations at the stately Roosevelt Hotel was that the prospects for business were as good as ever. The sentiment was best captured when a senior banker from JPMorgan Chase made the bold claim that, under current market conditions, a company could strike a $100 billion takeover, paid entirely in cash.
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