The rise of SPACs and IPOs has ushered in a new era: that of mergers and acquisition as companies that were bullish on the SPAC and IPO trend find themselves unable to achieve sustainability. Discover the ways a company may be valued and what both sides need to know with respect to business valuation in M&A.

The past 12 months have been a whirlwind of M&A activity & public debuts. As many companies prepared to go public and wrestled over whether to do a traditional IPO or merge with a SPAC, several public companies moved in the opposite direction. They announced they were going private.

In fact, some experts are now predicting that the flood of IPOs and SPACs will be replaced by a surge in companies leaving the public markets. Companies including our own clients Houghton Mifflin, Citrix, and MoneyGram have already chosen this option.

DFIN announced its fourth quarter and full-year earnings on Tuesday. You can read the press announcement here.

For DFIN, 2021 was a record-setting year. Our company saw a surge in M&A and IPO activity. We had seven of the top 10 IPOs and more than doubled our 2020 IPO volume. Our support of more than 175 SPACs was over 200 percent greater than last year.

While it may not be the first thing you think about when planning for a merger or IPO, sooner or later, your company will need to tackle investor relations. Read on to learn the basics of the investor relations role.

The financial due diligence process is critical to the success of a merger or acquisition, and there's a lot more to the phrase than you might think. Review the transaction details of M&A due diligence to make sure everything is on point to happen by the timetable of the deal.

Mergers and acquisitions promise to create value for the business, but they are only truly successful when there is an integration practice after the fact. Bringing together two distinct organizations often means there are cultural and operational differences that must be overcome to prevent friction and get the newly formed enterprise off on the right foot. With the right processes in place, companies undergoing a merger can ensure a smooth transition into the future, avoid unnecessary complications and maintain a high level of morale among the rank-and-file. 

Will 2021 Be a Good Year for U.S. Markets?

Despite the pandemic, 2020 was the biggest year for IPOs since 2014, and I am confident that the positive trend will continue for IPO stocks in 2021. It’s already getting off to a fast start with the Wall Street debut of mobile game developer Playtika Holding (PLTK), which benefits from strong videogame demand and a popular lineup of titles like Slotmania, Bingo Blitz, and Board Kings.

The adoption of technology for M&A due diligence has already been on the rise since the pre-Covid times. The Covid-19 global pandemic has forced dealmakers globally to accelerate the adoption of technology such as drones, cloud-computing and AI to enable virtual due diligence. A growing number of M&A professionals understand and appreciate the benefits of technology for their transactions, and advanced technologies such as cloud-based solutions is now allowing 24/7 access to crucial deal documents from anywhere in the world.

Investment Outlook: 2021 Looks Bright – a blog by Craig Clay, President of Global Capital Markets, DFIN

Despite the pandemic, 2020 was the biggest year for IPOs since 2014, and I am confident that the positive trend will continue in 2021.