Indeed, in a year defined by virtual meetings and remote transactions, that's how Wall Street has gotten plenty of business done. And it's how bankers who recently pulled together Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services Group's planned acquisition of the US-based arm of Spanish lender BBVA conducted some of the conversations that led to the tie-up, too.
"The things that were sort of the human touch around the deal — that's now been replaced" by tools like Zoom, "which of course is not as good," said Popok, who was not involved in the deal.and, when closed, will create America's fifth-largest retail bank, is just the latest example of the new age of dealmaking.
"PNC could have done it organically over a long period of time. They could have bought a bunch of different banks in sort of a string of pearls, potentially," the banker added. "But this was a way to get that franchise all in one transaction."Smaller banks have been forced to evolve in the wake of the pandemic. Insiders explain how fintechs are playing a key role in the future plans of regional and community banks.
"However, we didn't believe that BBVA — or any other seller for that matter — would be able to get a decent offer on the table in the current climate," the Morningstar note read. Nevertheless, PNC made the offer, and BBVA accepted, in a move that the analysts called "an excellent deal for BBVA." While it's unclear what type of due diligence PNC undertook in their research on the deal, Popok said that, in a virtual world, "the hard science of buying the company" — namely, the data and documentation — become all the more critical, without the ability for executives to gauge each other's dispositions in the same conference room.