Dealmakers told to ‘give up weekends’ as M&A gets stuck

One of the country’s most senior investment bankers, JPMorgan’s Julian Peck says it has felt harder in the last few months amid a dealmaking landscape struggling to agree on the value of assets and with emboldened activist shareholders making it difficult to close transactions.

“It certainly feels harder. In the last two-to-three months, my outlook for next year has waxed and waned,” Mr Peck, the Wall Street institution’s local head of investment banking, told the Financial Review CFO Live summit.