With the M&A market not yet fully recovered from the dropoff in activity in 2022, buyout firms have had to hold onto investments for longer and are seeking alternative routes to monetize them.
Bank of America (BAC) saw an opportunity to help private equity firms out of that bind. Its investment bank has formed a new team to help PE firms exit their investments, while BofA adds to its share of the intensely competitive market, Bloomberg News reported.
The bank’s Private Capital M&A Group is designed to harness the company’s resources, bringing together global capital solutions, financial sponsors, and industry coverage groups to help investment firms cash out of portfolio companies in flexible, creative ways, the article said.
The group is co-led by Richard Peacock and Amanda Dupuy, Bloomberg reported, citing an internal company memo. Peacock will continue to lead consumer and retail M&A, while Dupuy will still head global secondary advisory investment banking.
“The pace of sponsor exits has been structurally low over the past few years, and by definition it will need to rebound,” Eamon Brabazon, Bank of America’s (BAC) co-head of global mergers and acquisitions, told Bloomberg. “This means that sponsors will account for a greater share of the M&A pie going forward. The landscape is evolving rapidly, and we’re increasingly in a world where no one size fits all.”
