Christy, welcome.
What's transaction activity looking like in North America
right now and I suppose through to the end of the year?
Well, it is a lot more healthy than it was this time last year.
The pipeline is actually really robust right now, both in terms
of quality and quantity of deals.
Many of our PE clients are really excited about the deals
that are coming in the back half of the year.
Where are we seeing the most activity.
Well, we're seeing a lot of activity across multiple
sectors.
I would highlight consumer, energy, business services, I
mean really activity in multiple places.
We do have seen, we've seen a lot of interest in software.
Again, that was really a sector that was hit hard at around this
time last year.
And now there's been a real increase in the volume there.
And I think we're getting to a point where the mismatch between
buyer and seller expectations is starting to close.
We were still seeing a lot of choppiness in processes, so a
lot of delayed starts and sort of fits and starts.
But I think the volume and the activity is really there.
What should investors be thinking about?
What should their focus be right now?
Well, we are spending a lot of time with our clients looking at
sectors that we perceive to be more resilient from economic
downturns.
They've proven to be more resilient historically.
Also in places where our clients believe there's going to be less
disruption risk, whether that's from technology or from some
sort of new business model.
We spend a lot of time working on a strategy related to
consolidating and professionalizing a very large
space, for instance.
That's something we think about a lot within business services
and consumer services, which is an area where I spend a lot of
time.
The 2nd place that I would highlight, our clients are
spending a lot of time, effort, energy with their portfolio
companies and on accelerating their operational improvement
and their performance.
The work we're doing there is greater in volume than it's ever
been before.
We're spending a lot of time in particular on commercial topics
with our clients.
So Salesforce effectiveness, digital marketing, E com.
I'm also seeing our PE investors wanting to engage and wanting us
to help them at multiple points along the deal life cycle versus
you know some years ago when a lot of the focus was on the time
immediately post acquisitions.
Christy, thanks so much.
Thank you, Georgie.