Contact: Brenon Daly
As we all know, banking is a cyclical business. And after a painfully sharp downturn in recent years, the business is swinging back. It looks to be swinging even higher in 2011, according to our annual survey of many of the top dealmakers. (See our full report on the results.) We would note, too, that the rebound is expected for both the tech M&A market as well as the tech banking industry itself.
Consider this: Four out of five tech investment bankers said their pipeline appears fuller now than it did a year ago, up from two-thirds of them who said the same thing in our previous year’s survey. If we flip it around, just one out of 20 bankers (7%) said the pipeline is drier than it was a year ago, down from one out of five (20%) who said the same thing in the previous survey. The recovery is even more pronounced when we consider that in our 2008 survey, more than half of the bankers said they had fewer mandates in the pipeline than they did the prior year.
Meanwhile, concerning the tech banking business itself, respondents indicated that their firms expect to be hiring more in the next six months. They also reported that deals were closing more quickly and fee rates on the transactions were actually ticking higher.