MA activity in Asia's banking sector is on the rise, but no matter how hard the investment banking MA advisory teams might tell you they work, most of the difficult processes continue far beyond the initial agreement.
A courtship analogy is particularly apt here. When banks start talking about a merger and negotiating swap ratios its like the first couple of dates where they size up the value of a potential partner. Getting regulatory approval for the bank merger is like the first meetings with each others parents. This might not sound like much fun, but things get a lot harder when the two partners move in together and the...