An M&A Boom in Debt Collectors

M&A is heating up as buyers see a promising future in pursuing consumers' unpaid bills

By Jessica Silver-Greenberg

Not all dealmaking is dead. While many private equity firms, corporate buyers, and vulture investors have been scared off by the credit crunch, a flurry of activity is still occurring in one industry: companies that collect and buy consumer debt.

So far this year, $1.8 billion worth of mergers and acquisitions have been done in that business, compared with $1.65 billion in all of 2007. Meanwhile, overall M&A has dropped 26%, to $892 billion, in the first three quarters, according to Thomson Reuters. "Money never sleeps, and neither does the need to collect it," says Charlene A. Davidson, a senior managing director at researcher McGladrey Capital Markets....