Good news for investment bankers: U.S. merger and acquisition deals in the first five months of 2011 were up 39% from a year earlier, and PricewaterhouseCoopers expects activity to continue to climb through the rest of the year, according to a Wall Street Journal article.
"Stronger capital markets and significant amounts of cash on corporate balance sheets and in private-equity coffers have helped drive the rebound," the story says.
Average deal size jumped 45%, even as the number of announced transactions slid 4.5% to 1,276, thanks to megadeals like AT&T's takeover of T-Mobile. Hot sectors include high tech, financial services and energy.
Other news:
KKR is pursuing a minority investment in ING's U.S. online bank amid bids from GE and CapitalOne. [Bloomberg]
Citigroup has acknowledged that unidentified hackers breached its security and gained access to the data of 200,000 bank card customers.[DealBook]
Tony Hayward, formerly chief executive of BP, aims to raise 1 billion in an IPO of the energy fund Vallares. [WSJ]
The United Kingdom considers stricter rules on foreign takeovers.[AP]
Hedge funds fill a lending void for mid-sized businesses. [NY Times]
UBS will bump up pay to curb the exodus of talent from its American investment bank. [Financial Times]
A buyout giant says private equity executives are embarrassingly overpaid. [Reuters]
Man Group's CEO received a 25% rise despite the hedge fund's fall in profit. [Dow Jones]
U.S. News & World Report reports that the University of Florida's MBA program provided false ranking data. [BusinessWeek]
