PwC US has appointed Jennifer Mantini, a long-time deal advisory executive, to lead its Philadelphia location as office managing partner.

The appointment comes about four years after the Big Four firm named Mantini to the helm of its financial due diligence team. According to Philadelphia Business News, one of the executive’s first priorities will be overseeing a planned high-tech overhaul of the local PwC office she now leads. The office employs more than 1,900 of the firm’s professionals.

Mantini joined PwC in 1998 and became partner in 2013. Along the way, she spent about two years in London helping the firm’s local clients prepare for their US IPOs by implementing the GAAP accounting standard. Fast forward to today, the financial due diligence team she leads works on both the buy and sell side to make sure high-stakes M&A transactions go through smoothly.

The appointment is noteworthy partly because PwC US is one of the biggest names in the deal advisory world, as well as an important source of market research about the segment. The firm publishes regular analyses of the US M&A landscape that draw not only on in-house information but also numbers from financial data vendors. Boardroom Insight caught up with Mantini on occasion of this week’s news to get the insider’s perspective on what’s happening in the market these days. 

The first big story from PwC’s M&A research is the rebound in deal activity that has unfolded over the past few months. “Recently, PwC published our US Deals 2024 mid year outlook, which includes interesting insights into what’s to come with M&A trends,” Mantini told Boardroom Insight. “Currently, the M&A landscape is experiencing a surge in deal activity as companies seek to adapt and stay competitive in a rapidly evolving business environment. We see this trend being affected by various factors, including technological advancements, changing consumer behavior and a growing focus on sustainability.”

The data from the mid-year M&A report that Mantini cited can be found here. During the first five months of 2024, the deal surge that the executive pointed out took the form of a nearly 30% year-over-year jump in transaction value. In dollar terms, acquirers’ spending added up to $535 billion, up from $412 billion the same time last year.

Private equity firms continue to be a major driver of M&A activity. PwC, citing numbers from UK-based financial data provider Preqin, said that the private equity community was sitting on more than $1 trillion in dry power as of May 1. (In a sign of the times, Preqin itself agreed to be acquired earlier this week for £2.55 billion).

“One notable trend that’s shaping the M&A landscape is the relentless pursuit of digital transformation,” Mantini said. “PwC is embracing this trend, having recently announced a new agreement with OpenAI. As OpenAI’s first reseller for the ChatGPT Enterprise and the largest user of the product, PwC is at the forefront of leveraging cutting-edge AI technology to revolutionize the M&A game. Along those lines, a PwC analysis found there were eight AI-influenced deals worth over $1 billion in the first four months of 2024, putting AI deals on a more rapid pace than last year (eight in 2023).”

AI’s influence is also increasingly extending to the due diligence phase of deals. One of the most quotable tidbits from PwC’s recent M&A analysis is a piece of commentary on AI’s potential as a value creation tool. In the report, the Big Four firm suggests that automation software’s potential to improve business metrics at an acquisition target should be taken into account by buyers during the diligence process. “We’ve seen companies use AI to guide call center interactions with customers — prompting workers with less experience or training on ways to better address a customer’s needs,” stated one section of the report. 

PwC US says its data shows 60% of global CEOs plan to make a major acquisition in the next three years. Another data point that underscores the rebound in deal activity is the stepped-up pace of IPOs: PwC US logged 31 traditional IPOs in the first half of 2024, up from 17 during the year-ago period.

“Overall, the data paints a picture of optimism and recovery in the M&A market,” Mantini said. “Companies that navigate the evolving business environment successfully will likely find a plethora of opportunities waiting to be seized. The future of M&A is brimming with excitement and we’re delighted to be part of this transformative journey.”

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