ExecutiveChairman Roger Altman does not think the referendum on a potential U.K. exitfrom the European Union is having a significant impact on M&A dealannouncements in Europe.

Altmansaid during an April 27 earnings conference call that the widespread assumptionin the business community is that the majority of voters in the June 23referendum will vote against an exit. He said that viewpoint and how thereferendum impacts dealmaking could change, but for now, he thinks the impacton M&A is limited at most.

"Idon't think it's having a big negative effect," he said. "Whetherit's having any, I can't say."

Ingeneral, the global M&A market is healthy even though the first quarter sawa drop in activity, Altman said. The total value of global M&A transactionannouncements in the first quarter was down 19% year over year, but the numberof global deals announced was down only 7% in the same period, he added.

"Whatyou see here is a modest dropoff among larger transactions because the dollarvolumes are down further than the number of deals," he said.

Headded that January market volatility negatively impacted the first-quarterglobal deal announcement totals, but markets have recovered at this point.

"Wedon't see any reason why the rest of 2016 shouldn't witness a healthy globalM&A market," he said.