Friday, September 24, 2026 · Covering: Mon–Fri this week
TL;DR
Paramount Skydance's ~$110B run at Warner Bros. Discovery cleared its last legal hurdle this week — a state-AG settlement unlocked a $49B debt sale to fund the deal, the kind of financing story that's pure interview material. Private equity kept moving in the mid-market too: Veritas Capital sold defense-electronics maker Epiq Solutions to TTM Technologies for $1.1B, and H.I.G. Capital agreed to take industrial-services firm MISTRAS Group private for $866M. Markets stayed on edge — the Fed hiked rates to 3.75%–4.00% (its first hike since 2023) to fight energy-driven inflation, and the 10-year Treasury touched 5.11%, its highest level since 2007.
TOP 3 DEALS
DEAL 01
Media / TMT
DEAL SIZE (EV)~$110B ($30.00/share cash)
ADVISORSWBD: J.P. Morgan, Evercore, Allen & Co. | PSKY: Centerview, BofA, Citi, RedBird, M. Klein
Paramount Skydance settled a multistate lawsuit challenging its takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, clearing the way for shareholder approval and removing the last major legal obstacle to closing. With litigation resolved, Paramount is launching a roughly $49B bond-and-loan sale — one of the largest corporate debt raises of the year — to help fund the ~$30/share, all-cash acquisition.
Why it matters for recruiting: This is the highest-profile media M&A process running right now, and it touches nearly every IB product group at once — M&A advisory, leveraged/IG debt capital markets, and fairness opinions. Advisory fees across the deal are estimated near $225M; expect it to come up in "walk me through a recent deal" prompts all recruiting season.
DEAL 02
Defense / Aerospace
DEAL SIZE (EV)$1.1B, all-cash
ADVISORSBuyer (TTM): Guggenheim Securities | Seller (Epiq/Veritas): Baird
TTM Technologies, a printed-circuit-board and RF-components maker, is buying Epiq Solutions — a signals-intelligence and software-defined-radio company — from sponsor Veritas Capital for $1.1B, funded with new debt. The deal pushes TTM deeper into defense electronics, a segment growing faster than its legacy commercial PCB business.
Why it matters for recruiting: A clean sponsor-to-strategic exit in defense tech, plus a debt-funded acquisition by a public acquirer — good material for questions on how leverage and accretion/dilution math work when a strategic buyer, not a PE fund, is doing the borrowing.
DEAL 03
Industrials
DEAL SIZE (EV)$866M ($20.35/share cash)
ADVISORSSeller (MISTRAS): Baird | Buyer (H.I.G.): Texas Capital Securities
MISTRAS Group, which provides asset-integrity and non-destructive testing services to energy and industrial plants, agreed to be taken private by PE firm H.I.G. Capital for $20.35 a share. It's a classic public-to-private of a smaller, steady-cash-flow industrial services business at a moment when take-privates have been picking back up.
Why it matters for recruiting: Smaller deals like this are the bread and butter of mid-market and industrials coverage groups — expect questions on why a sponsor would pay a premium for a low-growth, asset-light services business (stable cash flows, roll-up potential, multiple arbitrage).
SECTOR SIGNAL
DEFENSE / AEROSPACE
Beyond TTM/Epiq above, advisors describe 2026 as a seller's market for defense electronics and mission-critical subsystems, with strategics paying up to add capability rather than build organically. Harris Williams ↗
TECH / TMT
Francisco Partners closed its $2.2B take-private of Jamf this week, another sign PE is still willing to pay up (~3.3x ARR) for profitable, slower-growth B2B SaaS. SecurityWeek ↗
INDUSTRIALS
The Olin-Huntsman chemicals tie-up continues to reshape the North American chemicals landscape, a reminder that consolidation logic (scale, feedstock leverage) still drives industrials M&A even in a slow-growth tape. PlasticsToday ↗
HEALTHCARE / OTHER
Australia's Telix Pharmaceuticals agreed to buy Germany's ITM Isotope Technologies for up to $2.35B, consolidating supply of the medical isotopes used in cancer-targeting radiopharmaceuticals. Bloomberg ↗
M&A / LEVERAGED FINANCE
Paramount's ~$49B bond-and-loan sale for the WBD deal launches this week, one of the largest single corporate debt raises of 2026 and a real-time test of credit-market appetite for megadeal leverage at multi-year-high yields. It follows EA's record $45B LBO debt package earlier this year, which priced tight to talk despite similar rate pressure — early evidence the leveraged-finance market is still open for the right credits even as the Fed hikes. Bloomberg ↗
MARKET TONE
Fed hikes, doesn't cut. The Fed raised its benchmark rate to 3.75%–4.00%, its first hike since 2023, treating energy-driven inflation as a supply shock rather than a demand problem and leaving the door open to more tightening. CNBC ↗
Yields at multi-year highs. The 10-year Treasury hit 5.11% (highest since 2007), the 2-year touched 4.90% (highest since 2023), and the 30-year reached 5.44% (highest since 2004), all pricing in a longer hiking cycle. TheStreet ↗
Oil stays elevated on Strait of Hormuz risk. WTI traded near $93 and Brent near $105 a barrel after a commercial vessel was struck in the Strait this week and Iran warned it could widen the conflict to Red Sea energy routes. OilPrice.com ↗
Equities chopped sideways. The Nasdaq hit a record on Monday on an AI-stock rally before surging yields dragged the S&P 500, Dow, and Nasdaq back to roughly flat by Thursday's close. CNBC ↗
Credit markets face their biggest test of the year. Paramount's $49B debt sale launches into a higher-yield tape, and how it prices will say a lot about whether leveraged finance can keep funding megadeals through a Fed hiking cycle. Bloomberg ↗
INTERVIEW ANGLE
TOPIC: FINANCING A MEGADEAL INTO A RISING-RATE MARKET
Paramount is raising ~$49B of debt to fund the WBD deal in the same week the Fed hiked rates and the 10-year hit its highest level since 2007. That tension — financing a record M&A deal just as borrowing got more expensive — is a great lens for a technical or "recent deal" question.
Why debt and not equity? Debt avoids diluting Paramount's shareholders, and interest is tax-deductible, which lowers the effective cost of financing relative to issuing new stock at an uncertain valuation.
Higher yields raise the cost of debt, which compresses returns (or, in an LBO context, IRR) unless the acquirer can point to real synergies or has locked in financing before rates moved further.
EA's $45B LBO debt package priced tight and was heavily oversubscribed earlier this year, which is the read-through bulls will cite: credit investors still want exposure to strong, well-underwritten megadeal credits even with the Fed hiking.
How to bring it up: If asked to discuss a live deal, use Paramount/WBD to show you can connect the M&A story to the financing market it depends on — not just deal rationale, but whether the capital structure actually gets funded on acceptable terms.