The COVID-19 pandemic that slammed the economy this spring could generate more M&A deals in the months ahead.

Sales involving distressed companies, asset sales and even liquidations could rise toward the end of the year and into 2021, according to M&A and turnaround professionals. They describe a landscape nearly eight months into the pandemic where businesses have exhausted federal Paycheck Protection Program loans they got in the spring and are awaiting a final decision on debt forgiveness, or where the payment deferrals their bank provided on a loan are coming to an end.

At Grand Rapids investment bank and M&A firm Charter Capital Partners LLC, Mike Brown tells the stories of business owners who decided early this year to sell, had to wait when COVID-19 hit, and “who are now saying, ‘OK, I’m sick of waiting. I’ll take less.’”

Brown, who runs the M&A practice at Charter Capital Partners, expects to see M&A activity pick up in late 2020 and early 2021 as more owners that navigated through the pandemic decide to sell.

Charter Capital Partners in the last few weeks has pitched to more prospective sellers to represent them in a transaction “than we did in the last three or four months,” Brown said. Read more at MiBiz