Did you ever think the IPO market was going to come back to life? Things are looking up, at least going by signs in the wider M&A market. Blockbuster deals more than doubled globally in Q1. Maybe you’ll see some value from those RSUs after all.

The lowdown

• 📈 The S&P 500 closes at another record high.

• 💸 UBS cuts its bonus pool by 14% after a deal and trading slowdown.

• 🌉 Lloyd’s of London sees multi-billion dollar insurance loss from Baltimore bridge collapse.

Flex your finance muscle 💪

Monopsony

If you’ve ever flipped a board over, screamed at your siblings, and run out of the room crying, you’ll know what a monopoly is. But did you know that there’s an opposite phenomenon?

While a monopoly refers to a seller having a controlling position in an industry, a monopsony is a situation where there’s only one dominant buyer. This buyer has significant control over the market, and can drive down the prices of goods or services being bought.

One example could be a large fast food chain that needs specific ingredients. The producers of those ingredients won’t have many other customers, and the fast food chain will buy in large quantities. This allows the fast food chain to exert pressure when it comes to pricing.

Monopsonies can also exist in the labor market. For example, if you run the only coal mine in a town, skilled workers don’t have another place to work without having to move towns. This gives you a lot of leverage when it comes to setting wages.

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Blockbuster M&A deals more than double in first quarter

The first quarter saw a rebound in the M&A market, with blockbuster deals more than doubling ($). Eleven takeovers worth $10 billion or more were struck in the first three months of the year, with a total value of $215 billion, according to the London Stock Exchange Group. That’s up from five transactions worth a combined $100 billion in the same period last year.

The total value of global M&A climbed 30% to $690 billion, despite the number of deals announced falling by 31%. The US accounted for most of the activity, pushing its share to a 35-year high. The country’s energy, tech, and financial sectors were particularly active. Among the biggest deals of the quarter were Capita One’s $35 billion takeover of Discover Financial, and chip design toolmaker Synopsys’s $35 billion acquisition of engineering software maker Ansys.

Europe recovered particularly sharply. The value of deals in the region climbed by 60% from a year earlier to $127 billion. Asia-Pacific deals fell 28% to $90 billion.

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