13-10-2020
Global mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity tumbled to its lowest level in 2020, despite an exceptional rebound in the final three months of the year, but experts at Willis Towers Watson expect a dealmaking surge in 2021 driven by demand, ample funding, ultra-low interest rates.
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Jan 12, 2021 09:10 pm
By Chloe Aiello
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After the tremendous political strides the cannabis industry made in 2020, 2021 has a lot to live up to. Experts and insiders agree the coming year could have a lot in store for the maturing cannabis industry, from acceleration of M&A and funding in the capital markets to continuing momentum toward legalization on the state level.
TRENDS
STRATEGIC M&A
Experts predict that shifting political preferences toward legalization in the U.S. and globally will kick off a flurry of consolidation in the cannabis industry. But mergers and acquisitions in 2021, following last year s onset of COVID-19 and a pre-pandemic market rout that rocked the cannabis sector, will be much more intentional and accretive than the land grab M&A of more cash-flush years.
January 6, 2021
One of the big things I m thinking about to kick off 2021 is how electric vehicles will be entwined with a U.S. recovery. Even before Joe Biden has formalized any green stimulus plans, the EV industry in the U.S. is showing important indicators that it will see solid growth this year and that means jobs. New industry jobs. Electric jobs. Climate jobs.
Recently I chatted with the CEO and founder of Lion Electric, an electric bus and truck maker based in Saint-Jerome, Quebec. Marc Bedard founded the company 12 years ago after working at a diesel school bus company in the 1990 s with the goals of eliminating diesel engines for school buses and diesel fumes from the air that school kids breathe.
IndexIQ 2021 Outlook: New Year, New Administration, New Normal?
By Salvatore Bruno, Chief Investment Officer, Managing Director, IndexIQ
The calendar is turning but the issues that have dominated the markets are likely to persist at least into the early part of the New Year. The good news: coronavirus vaccine distribution is underway worldwide. The less good news: there are still several more months of winter to wade through, so that the virus will be with us for a while, and those industries directly impacted by the lockdowns – travel and leisure, for example – will likely continue to struggle.
In spite of this, we see the cyclical recovery continuing and possibly even accelerating as the year goes on. The risk to investors is that an improving economy generates excessive enthusiasm and that the equity market, as a discounting mechanism, gets too far ahead of itself on lofty expectations, triggering a correction. To put it succinctly, investors should be on the lookout for
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: SPAC frenzy.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #3: SPAC in action.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #4: SPAC is the new black.
FADEL: Former House Speaker Paul Ryan s got a SPAC. Shaquille O Neal s got a SPAC. And the youngest self-made billionaire ever just brought in all that cash through a SPAC. But what the heck is a SPAC? We ll let NPR s Camila Domonoske explain.
CAMILA DOMONOSKE, BYLINE: In an IPO, or initial public offering, you start with a company that wants to go public, and then investors toss a bunch of money at it. A SPAC, or special purpose acquisition company, kind of flips that around. Investors pool their money together first with no idea what company they re investing in. Then that pile of money goes out and looks for a company to merge with. The company gets the money and the stock ticker with a lot less paperwork. Until recently, this was not a well-regarded way to go public.