A continued bullishness on the health of the economy and growing cash levels have bolstered optimism that 2018 will see robust M&A activity in the middle market sector. As the Citizens Middle Market M&A Outlook for 2018 survey linked below illustrates, this rising tide of optimism particularly benefits potential sellers due to the limited number of quality targets and a glut of available acquisition capital.  Of the 400 middle market executives polled, nearly 60% of them reported that they are either currently involved in or considering an acquisition in the next 12 months.

At the annual Primary Dealer Meeting in New York City, Lorie K. Logan, Senior Vice President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, discussed the movement away from the use of the LIBOR rate as a reference rate and the New York Fed's role as a producer and administrator of new reference rates that are being developed as possible LIBOR substitutes. 

   

 

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. (ISDA) and several other financial market focused associations recently published a transition roadmap that focuses on the issues, steps and key challenges that will arise as the financial markets transition from utilizing interest rates based on LIBOR and other interbank offered rates (known as IBORS) to interest rates based on to-be-developed alternative risk free rates (RFRs).   

The roadmap aggregates and summarizes in one place information published by regulators and various public-/private-sector RFR working groups in order to provide a single point of reference for the work done so far to select alternative RFRs and plan for transition.