Good morning from The Financial Times.
Today is Monday, February 16th.
And this is your FT News Briefing.
International bank mergers are heating up across the EU,
and car makers are taking a $65 billion hit from a reversal in electric vehicle ambitions.
Plus, we dig into what's going on with all the weird sell-offs on Wall Street.
I get the impression that a lot of people just want to avoid parts of the market that could randomly implode on a way more strange white paper issued by a former karaoke company.
I'm Victoria Craig, and here's the news you need to start your day.
Banking mergers between European Union countries hit their highest level
since the 2008 financial crisis.
Rising profits and share prices in the sector have revived sluggish dealmaking,
which reached 17 billion euros last year.
That's a 400% increase from 2024, according to Deologic data.
Policymakers have long called for more consolidation across the EU banking industry,
but executives said regulatory hurdles and political resistance made dealmaking difficult.
That, they argued, caused the European sector to lose ground to US rivals.
EU banking consolidation is part of a wider trend worldwide.
Global M&A in the sector more than doubled last year, according to research by McKinsey.
U.S.
President Donald Trump says no one has benefited more from his drive to cut regulation than the U.S.