TORONTO, Jan 4 Reuters Canadian energy, power and mining companies are expected to lead a rebound in dealmaking this year helped by lower interest rates, following a slump in overall mergers and acquisitions in 2023 to the lowest since the outbreak of COVID19, bankers said.

Money markets are betting that the Bank of Canada BoC, which raised interest rates to a 22year high of 5 in 2023, could start cutting borrowing costs as early as April.

This general consensus about how 2024 is going to be a more normalized environment is making its way into the boardroom, said Sarfraz Visram, head of Canadian and international mergers and acquisitions MA at the Bank of Montreal, adding that his team was having extensive conversations with clients.

If it pans out, we39;ll have a bumper year in MA for sure.

Canadian announced MA in 2023 dropped 27 to 183.9 billion from the previous year, LSEG data showed.

Citi, Goldman Sachs Co and RBC Capital Markets were the top three financial advisors on announced MA, the data showed.

Energy and power MA hit a fiveyear high of 70.4 billion, up 56 from the previous year, fueled by deals such as CoucheTard39;s 3.3 billion purchase of some of TotalEnergies gas stations and Canadian Baytex Energy39;s 2.5 billion bid for Ranger Oil.

The biggest deal of the year was a Glencoreled consortium39;s 9 billion acquisition of Teck Resources39; steelmaking coal unit following a long battle, which drove mining MA up 34.7 to 26.4 billion, a trend bankers…