We have been writing about two M&A trends this year including bidding wars for companies and consolidation in the banking sector. We saw both trends in play last week with a new superior offer for the railroad Kansas City Southern (KSU) and three new bank mergers announced last week. The three new bank mergers don’t include one where the acquiring company wants the target, Marlin Business Services (MRLN), to cease operations as a bank. It is not surprising that the S&P Regional Banking ETF (KRE) is up more than 30% this year compared to a 10% gain for the S&P 500. One could argue that a more appropriate benchmark for small regional banks might be the Russell 2000 index of small cap stocks. Even in that comparison, KRE is trouncing the 15% year-t0-date returns of the Russell 2000 index.
Merger activity remained steady last week with six new deals announced and seven deals completed. You can find all the active deals listed below in our Merger Arbitrage Tool (MAT) that automatically updates itself during market hours.
There were no new deals announced in the Deals in the Works section last week.
SPAC Arbitrage
There were 4 new SPAC business combinations announced last week. You can find the new SPAC IPO announcements in our SPACs tool here.