i'm pleased to say lucinda guthrie is here with me.hank you for being here. >> thanks for having me, dan. >> first, what is most interesting here, we haven't seen just an increase of volume of dealmaking, but value as well. what is driving this trend? >> what we had at the beginning of the year was an expectation of a number of rate cuts. that boosted confidence in the market. as we went into the second quarter, that shifted over to the private equity space and we saw debt markets easing and there's also pressure on private equity to put capital to work. we started to see much larger transactions in the buyout space. that's really what is driving those volume figures you have there. >> fascinating. take me inside some of the deals. what are the sectors seeing the buyout activity through the course of the year? >> technology is obviously booming. if you look at darktrace, that really -- that transaction summarizes what we are seeing here. there is huge interest in cybersecurity. it is a multibillion pound buyout. it is also ale listed c