Is now the time to be bulking up in M&A and other kinds of corporate finance advice?

On Monday, Societe Generale trumpeted the hire of a top French dealmaker from JPMorgan — the auspiciously named Thierry d’Argent — and reiterated its big plans for European M&A. Daiwa Securities SMBC agreed to buy mid-market corporate finance house Close Brothers Corporate Finance. Meanwhile Barclays Capital is making lots of equity markets hires, and says it aims to be one of the world’s top full-service investment banks.

As I wrote:

“A clutch of banks with previously limited reach in European takeovers and other corporate advisory work are betting now is a good time to grab market share — before the dealmaking business recovers.

“There are experienced bankers on the job market at bargain prices after the bloodletting of the financial crisis, while others who survived the culls are restless, recruiters say.

“Advisory businesses, like the one Japanese banks bought in Britain on Monday, offer institutions the prospect of lucrative fees and follow-on work without gobbling up precious capital. But the latecomers may find they are chasing a limited pool of deals, competing with both better-established rivals and with newly emboldened boutiques fresh from their own hiring sprees.”

And here’s a sobering thought. The dollar value of European M&A in the year to date is less than 30 percent of the levels reached in the halcyon days of 2007. Read the full story here.