From mergers and acquisitions to deregulation and a “competitive” tax structure, Bank of America’s top executive painted an optimistic outlook for the U.S. economy under President Trump’s second administration, Fox Business reported on Wednesday.
“When you talk to the people around here, from all over the world, [in] business, it’s the No. 1 place to invest. Not by a little bit, by a lot,” BofA Chairman and CEO Brian Moynihan said of America’s economic landscape during a “Mornings with Maria” interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
“If you go back to the first Trump administration and the tax changes, that brought America’s tax rate down to where it was competitive. America always has… [a] big market, biggest economy in the world, growing, et cetera,” he continued. “America has good business conditions in terms of talent, people, worker flexibility, all those types of things.
“So you put all that together, it was a great place to invest. You go in and say now, I’m going to move the regulation back, and now I’m going to create even better conditions for investment,'” he added. Bank of America started the Q4 earnings season on a high note, reporting a double beat with surging profits of $6.67 billion. The strong performance was driven by a 44% increase in investment banking fees, which rose to $1.7 billion.
The banking industry anticipates a surge in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity under President Donald Trump, who plans to roll back regulations that hampered transactional activity during the Biden administration.
Under former President Joe Biden, appointees from the Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communications Commission, and the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division significantly slowed M&A activity starting in 2021. Companies that defied these regulatory hurdles often faced lengthy legal battles with what some referred to as the “Biden deal police.”
“We were sitting here last year, the issue of business inflation and interest rates, but another big issue was the amount of regulation in small and medium-sized companies, and in the banking system, and the mortgage companies. And the feeling is that it will now swing back to more normalcy,” Moynihan noted.
“It swung way too far in the last administration,” he added. “We tried to explain to them that was going to cause them troubles… But I think it’s more important that the general economy feels a little bit of relief on regulation across the board, the ability to get deals done, and American companies can now go out domestically and around the world and be the kings that they’re supposed to be.”
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