Shareholder value: Comerica Bank offices in Sherman Oaks, California. Fifth Third Bancorp has agreed to buy Comerica for about US$10.9bil, a sign that the logjam blocking big mergers in the industry may have broken under new deregulation efforts. — Bloomberg
NEW YORK: This month’s US$10.9bil sale of Texas-headquartered Comerica to Fifth Third Bancorp, spurred by a small South Florida-based hedge fund, has Wall Street primed for corporate activists to further energise a buoyant deals market.
The highly regulated US banking sector hasn’t historically attracted much attention from Wall Street’s corporate agitators, but HoldCo Asset Management is challenging the status quo after successfully pressing Comerica to put itself up for sale earlier this year, and it has more regional banks in its sights.
