Dealcast: The M&A Podcast

Seema Hingorani, managing director and member of the Operating Committee at Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM) talks to Lucinda Guthrie, executive editor at Mergermarket in this episode of Dealcast marking International Women’s Day.
Investing “where nobody’s looking” opens up the prospect of making a “boatload of money”, and when this means allocating to diverse teams allocators are changing the world as they do this, Hingorani argues.
Hingorani reflects on her own storied journey as an asset allocator from hedge fund entrepreneurship, through to her tenure until 2014 as CIO of New York City Retirement Systems, which had assets of USD 160bn to her current role at Morgan Stanley Investment Management.
Struck by the lack of female talent within the industry, Hingorani noted the major opportunity cost not only for women who could build outstanding careers but also for investors lacking a range of perspectives for how to put their money to work.
This observation led her to found Girls Who Invest in 2015, an institution that continues to build awareness of career pathways in the investment world and now counts 4,000 alumni across 200 universities.
From talent development to retention and investor returns to public service, this episode is a fascinating insight into a major Wall Street player at the top of her game, who has created a movement that is attracting and training top female talent into the finance industry.

Around the world, many LPs are looking to diversify away from the US' recent instability. So how are investors viewing Asia and what is happening on the ground?
The Asian Venture Capital Journal’s (AVCJ) managing editor Tim Burroughs joins AVCJ’s associate editor Justin Niessner to discuss what is driving investors to diversify into Asia and what challenges they face in the region.
In this Dealcast, the two discuss how Asia is perceived as a market with good deals and less expensive valuations. For example, many firms are able to gain a foothold in the AI market at a lower price than they could in the US. Those comfortable with the geopolitics in China may see even more opportunities to diversify.
This episode also explores: How sovereign wealth funds factoring into private equity in Asia. Whether Japan and India are still the favourites of the region. And how fund managers are viewing a pan-regional approach.

After the Trump administration revoked the 2009 Endangerment Finding that underpinned federal actions curbing greenhouse gases in February 2026, there is a sense that we are reaching a peak of anti-ESG sentiment.
However, Professor Michel Driessen, director of Bayes Business School’s M&A Research Centre and chair of Queen’s Tower Advisory, argues environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues should be treated as a substantial business risk – and ignored at business owners’ peril.
ESG policies are more than just the “E”, though the term has become highly politicized, with a heavy focus on the environmental aspects.
Companies have gone from greenwashing a few years ago to “green hiding” today, making it difficult for investors to assess the financial value of ESG measures that are going underreported.
At a time when anti-ESG sentiment feels rampant, Driessen, co-author of Green Gold: How Sustainability Creates Deal Value, joins Mergermarket’s global executive editor Lucinda Guthrie to discuss the importance of these measures in M&A.
In this episode of Dealcast, the guests explore questions including: When will anti-ESG sentiment start to cool? How can AI support ESG reporting? And why are the palm oil industry and Boohoo such a good case studies for the complexities of ESG beyond just environmental standards?
Green Gold: How Sustainability Creates Deal Value will be available from 26 February.

"This merger of policy and antitrust is not specific to the US. It's a global phenomenon,” says Jenn Mellott, managing partner at Freshfields working in both Washington DC and Brussels.
What began five years ago - with the Biden administration’s broadening of antitrust to consider more than just what is best for the consumer - has become an increasingly popular strategy around the world to serve policy goals. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice (DOJ) have been utilizing antitrust as a political tool to address different policy issues from labor issues to domestic supply chain concerns.
In this week’s Dealcast, Mellott, who works on competition cases both sides of the pond and has represented companies such as Adobe, Starbucks, and AstraZeneca, joins Mergermarket’s global chief regulatory editor, Reuben Miller. Together they discuss how political agendas, alongside geopolitical tensions, are impacting dealmaking and driving the need for a strong global narrative in large transactions.
The episode explores how international deals could face speedbumps with national governments that may be misaligned on initiatives, like ESG. The conversation dives into which countries, like the UK and China, are using their regulatory bodies to address local or regional policy priorities. Mellott and Miller also discuss the role of state attorneys general in the US, and how they are impacting deals in the Trump 2.0 administration.
This Dealcast explores questions like: what is "America First" antitrust? Which sectors are facing increased regulatory scrutiny? How does foreign direct investment screening influence transactions? And what is the role of lobbyists in getting deal approvals?

“For the last three years, did you know -- that the secondary market’s been larger than the IPO market in terms of transaction volume?” that’s what Moelis & Company Managing Director Paul Sanabria said to showcase the immensely increased popularity of secondaries over the last couple of decades. The secondaries market of the 1970s looked quite different than it does today, originating then as an opportunistic solution for LP liquidity, with some of its early pioneers including VCFA, Landmark and Coller.
In this week’s Dealcast, Tom Cane, Mergermarket’s funds editor is joined by Jeff Hammer and Paul Sanabria, Managing Directors at Moelis & Company’s private capital advisory group, where they help lead the firm’s global secondaries practice. They discuss how a niche, opportunistic corner of private markets has transformed into a sophisticated, multi‑strategy global capital market exceeding USD 220bn in annual volumes.
The discussion charts the secondaries market journey from early LP‑driven trades, through the GP‑led restructurings of the 2010s, to today’s GP‑led “2.0” landscape defined by trophy assets, direct‑sponsor strategies, and a surge of new capital sources.
The podcast also explores which direct sponsors are launching secondaries strategies like New Mountain and Warburg Pincus, as well as the traditional asset managers, like Blackstone, that are joining in.
With answers to questions like: how does one define trophy assets? Are GP‑leds becoming standard exit paths alongside M&A and IPO? What could the next decade look like for secondaries?
This episode is not one to miss.