Follow-on funds, guarantees for the M&A finance industry

However, this is surprisingly not the case M&A, the main force that has traditionally driven the industrythe main character. Revaluation (improvement of financial margin) and refinancing (extension of debt and expansion of space) have gone from minor actors to main characters achieving the pleasures of managers.

in many cases up to twice during the year the companies were able to improve the price of their act, taking advantage of surprisingly favorable curves.

Surprising because not the same Trump (more than weeks after day of liberation) was able to destroy the fundamentals that are now emerging in this market. What is also a fact is that no other party has succeeded in liquidation. You seem to enjoy the song even more.

The year was also recorded in 2025 in corporate CLOs; 126,000 crore, or the same, 50% of the total liquidation and 60,000 crore in cases of fresh issues. And just as there weren’t three, it was also a record year for sequels, the trending topics most young people are talking about, with a volume of more than 200,000 million.

Investors do not forgive their desire for income

These funds are the solution that the industry has come across to buy time when the manager (private capital) has completed the life cycle of its inversion and cannot or will not sell or rather will sell poorly.

In this way, instead of selling the company, look for new investors who replace the previous ones, and with the money of the new ones, they supply liquidity to the more prominent ones. And the last one, it’s nothing more than a curiosity It has a lot to do with the low level of mergers and acquisitions.

I know that this new concept now represents in many cases 10% of total M&A fees in the private equity space. So we can say without much misunderstanding that the last few months have been particularly difficult in business buying and selling.

There are as many factors as can be imagined to explain this tendency, but it is also certain that there are apparently fewer reasons for such lower activity than on other occasions. Unless a macro power is hidden from the eyes of many like Stranger Things, I explain it to most. So, if only out of necessity, you’ll be optimistic about the year you’re about to take your first steps.

So you have to think about it We need mergers and acquisitions to feed this market or if we have found a replacement element. Maybe the reality is that yes, we need it and a lot of it.

And I’m not just saying this to let you know and walk away. CLOs also have to rotate assets, just like private equity has to rotate cards and donate money to their LPs (preferably with good income).

Adamas, liquidation requires finding a house where you can live. It’s very cold now, let’s think of winter as inflation. Investors do not let go of their desire for income, and it is very possible that investors (understanding investors are those managers who recommend better returns to their investors) are the ones who have fewer arguments why not to do this or that inversion.

Recently, we have seen, as we have seen, that classic business processes are no longer the same as they were in the previous year, and actors often return more often to bilateral processes, where people and no papers give the buyer the necessary peace of mind.

The uncertainty that is so globalized in this world, It’s like a living room that’s so busy but nobody can move. For investors and financiers to tend to make music invisible, we know it’s a bad time to not be moving.

And without music without mergers and acquisitions, this market will be hard to sustain in the broad market. We’ll find out what happens over the next few months.

***Alberto Aguilar Cárdenas, Head of ASF Iberia at Natixis CIB.