M&A Bankers Wanted for Gulf Merger Boom - Bloomberg

M&A Bankers Wanted for Gulf Merger Boom - Bloomberg:

It’s a good time to be an M&A banker in the Middle East.

Just one month into the year, five banks are merging: a three-way merger in oil-rich Abu Dhabi and a cross-country combination in Kuwait and Bahrain. More deals are in the works.

As oil prices settle at a new normal that’s barely enough to balance the budget of Gulf Arab monarchies, governments are engineering ways to stay competitive, prompting an unprecedented consolidation wave. Abu Dhabi, home to 6 percent of global oil reserves, combined three of its investment firms to create a wealth fund with about $250 billion of assets, shortly after another mega-merger between two of its largest lenders.