{"id":40827,"date":"2016-02-23T23:06:28","date_gmt":"2016-02-23T23:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2016\/02\/23\/presidential-election-could-limit-m-a-activity\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T23:13:47","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T23:13:47","slug":"presidential-election-could-limit-m-a-activity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/home\/2016\/02\/23\/presidential-election-could-limit-m-a-activity\/","title":{"rendered":"Presidential Election Could Limit M&#038;A Activity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">WASHINGTON \u2014\u00a0After two relatively active years, the tumult of a presidential election year may stifle the mergers and acquisitions market in the defense sector during 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Speaking at a defense industry outlook event co-hosted Tuesday by Squire Patton Boggs and Bloomberg BNA, Razmig Arzoumanian, head of Lincoln International&#8217;s aerospace and defense group in North America, said the spending caps put into place by 2011&#8217;s Budget Control Act created a lot of uncertainty in corporate board rooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;The major change you&#8217;ve seen over the last couple of years is we came out of sequestration, there was better clarity on the budget,&#8221; he said. &#8220;As that got lifted, you saw finally people being able to move their chess pieces around, and execute on transactions they had been planning for some time.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 2015, a record-setting $3.8 trillion in total deals (including non-defense deals) closed last year. In the defense sector, M&#038;A activity remained relatively flat from 2014, which saw less than $35 billion of transactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Public markets have also warmed to the earnings stability offered by defense stocks, further empowering defense firms to make significant transactions, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;The combination of those two things really unleashed the major trend of M&#038;A you saw happening over the last few years,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Robert D. Kipps, managing director at KippsDeSanto &#038; Co., agreed that budget clarity and lower budget deficits helped spur M&#038;A activity in recent years. But he doesn&#8217;t see that momentum carrying over into 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;I don&#8217;t think there&#8217;s going to be an enormous amount of activity this year, in an election year,&#8221; he said. After a new president is elected, perhaps the new administration and Congress can work towards a more rational kind of planning on defense budgets, instead of the one- or two-year deals favored of late, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;I&#8217;m hopeful that at some point, the actual needs are going to replace the bickering and some of the other issues that have held things up,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Three former members of Congress who are now members of Squire Patton Boggs&#8217; public policy practice voiced little hope for a long-term budget agreement happening this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Former Sen. John Breaux, D-La., noted the scarcity of work days on the legislative calendar. Throw in the chaos of a presidential election and the vacancy on the US Supreme Court caused by Justice Antonin Scalia&#8217;s death, and there&#8217;s little room for error.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;The time factor they&#8217;re going to have to do a budget and appropriations process for the remainder of the year, you might as well go ahead and do the CR [continuing resolution] now,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know how they&#8217;re going to get this done.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Former Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., expressed hope that the defense budget, specifically the overseas contingency operations fund, could be increased by as much as $20 billion to address national security needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But Breaux questioned whether Congress could add to the defense budget, given its current political polarization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;You&#8217;re not going to get an increase in defense spending of the magnitude that Trent was saying is needed without [Maryland Democratic Sen.] Barbara Mikulski saying, &#8216;Parity, parity, parity,'&#8221; and demanding an equal increase to non-defense discretionary spending, Breaux said. Fiscal conservatives in the House of Representatives won&#8217;t allow that to go through, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Former Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., noted that GOP defense hawks want the Pentagon&#8217;s budget to be as high as $649 billion, although they would accept $628 billion. Republican budget hawks in the House of Representatives would slash that number to $550 billion, well below the $582.7 billion budget request submitted by the Department of Defense earlier this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Kingston said House Budget Committee chairman Tom Price, R-Ga., has asked authorizing committees to ready potential cuts to entitlements that could offset an increase in defense spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;He&#8217;s optimistic they&#8217;ll get a budget out of the House, but the Senate has basically deemed the Bipartisan Budget [Act levels] as where they&#8217;re going to be,&#8221; Kingston said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Email:\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:aclevenger@defensenews.com\">aclevenger@defensenews.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Twitter:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/@andclev\">@andclev<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After two relatively active years, the tumult of a presidential election year may stifle the mergers and acquisitions market in the defense sector during 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":82975,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":33,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"coauthors":[2119],"class_list":["post-40827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"NVGYQCRIBNBDZE55FJ6WAHRDFI","arc_canonical_url":"\/home\/2016\/02\/23\/presidential-election-could-limit-m-a-activity\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with 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