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The new head of the Justice Department Antitrust Division, Jonathan Kanter, said on Monday the government should seek to stop proposed mergers which pose anticompetitive concerns rather than striking deals for asset sales or other concessions that would allow the transaction to close, Reuters reported. "In my view, when the division concludes that a merger is likely to lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly, in most situations, we should seek a simple injunction to block the transaction," said Kanter, who was confirmed in November and is one of three progressives named to top U.S. antitrust posts. Kanter took the reins of the division at a time of rising inflation, including in key industries like meat production, and growing concern that there are a range of sectors of the economy where a handful of companies have become too powerful. Kanter argued that asset sales, or divestitures, can fail because the company that buys the assets fails to make full use of them. He also noted that it was often difficult to craft behavioral remedies, for example creating a firewall separating two sectors of a company. "None of this is to say that divestitures should never be an option. Sometimes business units are sufficiently discrete and complete that disentangling them from a parent company in a non-dynamic market is a straightforward exercise where divestiture might have a high degree of certainty of success," said Kanter. "But in my view, those circumstances are the exception not the rule."

SPACs, or special-purpose acquisition companies, burst onto the scene in 2020 as the hip way to take Silicon Valley’s hottest startups public, the Wall Street Journal reported. Unlike traditional initial public offerings, SPACs were seen as modern and accessible, allowing any investor to put money into the companies of the future at the same time as professional money managers. SPACs — sometimes called blank-check firms — begin as shell companies. They raise money from investors, then list on a stock exchange. Their sole purpose is to hunt for a private company to merge with and take public. Because the company going public is merging with an existing publicly traded entity, it can make business projections and skirt some of the other regulations associated with IPOs. After regulators approve the deal, the company going public replaces the SPAC in the stock market. Upstart companies of all stripes clamored to participate, enamored with the pool of eager investors who were ready to back them, and enticed by celebrity SPAC creators and bankers who mint money when they complete deals. The company behind dog-toy subscription service BarkBox did a SPAC merger. So did the personal-finance app SoFi Technologies Inc. Office-sharing company WeWork Inc. found a SPAC after its planned IPO infamously blew up. Electric-vehicle battery makers, flying-taxi startups, self-driving car companies and a seemingly never-ending parade of biotech names all jumped into the fray. Now, the hype is giving way to reality. Like so many investment fads, what at first seemed like a way to earn easy money has revealed itself to be full of potential perils. The threat of tighter regulation is looming, and high-profile stumbles by some companies that went public via SPACs have taught investors some harsh lessons. It turns out investing in unproven upstarts isn’t for everyone, and with interest rates looking likely to rise in coming months, all sorts of speculative investments from technology stocks to bitcoin are getting hit. Shares of half of the companies that finished SPAC deals in the last two years are down 40% or more from the $10 price where SPACs typically begin trading, erasing tens of billions of dollars in startup market value. Losses top 60% from the peak about a year ago for many once-hot names like the sports-betting company DraftKings Inc. and space-tourism firm Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc., founded by British billionaire Richard Branson.

U.S. leveraged loan prices have surged to their highest levels since 2007 as investors snap up assets that will offer compensation while central banks start hiking interest rates, Reuters reported. The U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to deliver a rate hike as soon as March to combat inflation at a 40-year high and markets are pricing in another three hikes by the end of the year. That has heightened demand for assets that pay out as rates rise, sending the price of the S&P/LSTA Leveraged Loan Index to its highest levels since July 2007 at 99.066 at Wednesday's close, according to data from Refinitiv and S&P Global's Leveraged Commentary and Data. Loan funds saw the highest inflows since 2013 at $1.84 billion for the week ending on January 12, according to Refinitiv Lipper data. Government bond prices have tumbled and yields have surged over the last month as markets have ramped up rate hike bets. Analysts also expect new leveraged loan issuance to slow slightly this year after a record year in 2021, a factor also expected to provide technical support to prices.