PhillyTablet Inquirer Daily News
Mobile
Home Delivery
philly.com

email
font size
options
 
Tuesday, October 13, 2009

M&A revival: How Comcast helps, Obamacare debate hurts

Here's a switch: Thomas Bonney, boss at Old City-based CMF Associates financial advisors, says he hosted 80  investment pros at Mint on Second Street last night in an opening reception for today's M&A East dealmakers' conference at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, and found them "buoyant."

They were merry, Bonney says, not just because he filled them with Yards' beer and his own LeBlond-brand rum, but because the business-deal scene is finally looking up.

"Over the past 18 months, we dismantled a chunk of what we built with the fake money" that piled up in the economy "before September 2008. Now we're in the repositioning phase, where business owners and (buyout) funds are repositioning themselves to actually take advantage of changes in the marketplace...

"People last night were working on things they can actually get done in the next six months. It's an early stage of an increase in merger and acquisitions activity." The disconnect between buyer and seller prices is closing. Banks are less inflexible. Buyout funds "are putting more private equity up."

Examples? "Look at Comcast-NBC. That's a repositioning move." And IPOs are back. "It's all anecdotal. But I'd say it's a sign of liquidity coming back into the market This should cascade in the next 18 months." 

What's he worry about? "I'm worried Washington may do something unnatural. On healthcare, there was some significant interest in investing in healthcare, given it's 18 percent of the GDP. But now we've seen private equity guys backing off on that because of reimbursement rate risks and regulatory risks."

For instance? "Let's say you have an investment thesis that MRIs and CAT scans will grow. You want to buy MRI facilities and aggregate them.  But now you're not going to make that invesment when you see (a big fight in Washington over the) potential for reimbursement in that work. It needs to get settled.

"The unintended consequence of all this noise in Washington about healthcare, it's slowing down investment in the one area people were most interested in. They have to fix the rules."
Posted by Joseph N. DiStefano @ 12:06 PM  Permalink | 2 comments
Comments   
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 1:45 PM, 10/13/2009
    ObamaCare is going to destroy businesses and jobs and only reward those who enjoy life on welfare. Health care costs will skyrocket with the new legislation unless you are part of the small population who will receive subsidies. Of course if you receive those subsidies you won't have a job because employers will be punished with taxes if any of their employees receive subsidies for health insurance. And nothing about lowering the costs such as malpractice reform is being addressed!
    — ResponsibleAmerican
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 2:27 PM, 10/13/2009
    Seems to me a very large part of the US population, like my parents who worked all their lives, are already getting subsidized health care, no? Where would you draw the line, who do you want to exclude? Joe D.
    — distefj


2 comments
About Joseph N. DiStefano
Joseph N. DiStefano writes this blog to feed his PhillyDeals column in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Joe has been a member of Bloomberg LP’s New York Finance Team, wrote the book “Comcasted,” taught writing at St. Joseph’s University, and studied economics and history at Penn. Reach Joe at 215-854-5194 and JoeD@phillynews.com
Advertise Here