David Evans, a Managing Director in Alvarez & Marsal’s Transaction Advisory Group in London, recently joined leading influencers, investors and advisors for a live web broadcast hosted by The M&A Advisor. With global merger and acquisition announcements hitting record-setting levels in 2015, the panel discussed M&A activity across Europe and the outlook for 2016 and beyond.

The press is full of stories about the impact of e-commerce on the HighStreet but there is much less said about what it means for business-tobusiness (B2B) companies, where often the level of change can be just as profound.

We have augmented our business transformation expertise with the hire of oil and gas expert, Matson Blocker as a Houston-based Managing Director in the Performance Improvement practice. Mr. Blocker focuses on IT strategic planning, global program management, and operations improvement for downstream and chemicals organizations.

The Financial Accounting Standards Board recently released Accounting Standards Update (ASU) No. 2016-09, which finalizes significant changes aimed at simplifying the accounting for share-based payments. The final rules are effective for annual periods beginning after December 15, 2016 for public companies and after December 15, 2017 for all other entities. Early adoption is permitted, but if a company chooses to early adopt, it must do so for all amendments in ASU 2016-09.

Brian J. Fox joins our North American Commercial Restructuring practice as a Managing Director in New York.

Since the financial crisis, the challenges facing modern businesses have dramatically increased in scope, frequency and impact. New digital entrants, economic shocks, regulatory changes and senior misconduct are just a few of the causes of firms finding themselves in hot water. For those ill-equipped to handle such disruptions, the results can be disastrous. But, boards that are willing to take a proactive and bold response can crystallise that rarest outcome of a crisis: an opportunity.

A&M’s Malcolm McKenzie was recently interviewed by Matthew Gwyther for BBC Radio’s ‘In Business’ looking at corporate turnarounds. Malcolm, who Matthew describes as a “new breed of corporate doctor,” discusses the best approach to turnarounds and how to “tend to critically ill businesses.”

Spin-offs of the proposed merger of Dow and DuPont and other mega mergers will create buying opportunities for PE firms that invest in coatings, adhesives and sealants.

The United States enacted the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act to uncover U.S. persons who were hiding money in offshore financial institutions and similar investment vehicles.

May 2016 marks the 10 year anniversary of A&M's Global Transaction Advisory Services Group.

A&M’s Real Estate Advisory professionals successfully maximized recoveries for creditors by developing and administering an expedient liquidation process.

A&M represented the Unsecured Creditors’ Committee of Capmark Financial Group Inc., formerly part of GMAC’s commercial real estate division.

A multi‐billion real estate acquisitions and development firm seized an opportunity to acquire a significant portfolio of trophy office properties located in Manhattan.

A major European bank hired A&M to help the workout group evaluate the best alternative to maximize warehouse line recovery.

As a result of A&M’s work for Regions, approximately $3 million in qualified savings opportunities were identified separate of any savings through other “Branch Optimization” measures.