The merger arbitrage activity has been slow of late and it is no surprise. I mentioned in January that I expected mergers and acquisitions to slow down as financing became difficult to acquire.
In particular, merger arbitrage opportunities have been scarce ever since the failed Emageon (EMAG) deal with Stanford (my theory, anyway) and the spread for other mergers has not been wide enough to offer any real decent returns.
Eddy Elfenbein submits: Well, I've had a similar title before, but here's another very big secret on Wall Street -- mutual savings banks.
Don't laugh, whenever you hear that a mutual savings bank is about to go public, pay attention. A mutual savings bank is a bank that's "owned" by its depositors. Most of these institutions are a zillion years old. They're well run, and they basically have zero overhead.
