Dislocations Abound In The Merger Arbitrage Space
Ordinarily, announced non-complex strategic merger and acquisition deals trade on fairly tight spreads. Indeed, as early as 3 March, prior to the onset of the coronavirus crisis, deal spreads traded as tight as 0.5%. Since the coronavirus crisis spread outside of China and became a global phenomenon, it has started to wreak havoc on global capital markets. Companies subject to announced mergers and acquisitions have not been spared.
On Monday 15 March, we started to see real market dislocation. There were reports that Millennium, one of the world’s