With a growing deal pipeline, opportunities in investment grade credit are growing.

Mergers and acquisitions have been a key theme for investment grade credit thus far in 2024. Companies have mandates to grow, cash to invest, attractive equity valuations to use as currency, and strong balance sheets to use—setting up an environment ripe for deal-making.

The motivations behind M&A tend to fit into four buckets: 1) buying growth, 2) cost savings and scale, 3) regulatory changes and 4) industry disruption. Most deal flow thus far has fallen into the first two ...