Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Monday, September 6th, and this is your FT News Briefing.

The amount of deal-making in 2021 could break records, and what direction might Japan go in now

that its Prime Minister has stepped down? We'll take a look. Plus, bridge point when public earlier

this year, but the FT found that the UK private equity firm has kept some executive pay hidden.

When a company goes public, you can expect to see how much money its top executives make,

and that's kind of a really important principle of capitalism. But now we've got a company that's

listed where you can't really see the whole picture. I'm Mark Filipino, and here's the news you

need to start your day. 2021 has already seen nearly $4 trillion worth of deals, and at this

pace, total M&A activity this year is set to pass the all-time high set in 2007. That's when

$4.3 trillion worth of deals were announced. So, which companies are getting busy? Well, tech

financial services and real estate sectors have all seen booms. Companies are trying to take

advantage of super cheap financing because of low interest rates, and we told you about that last

week that investors and deal makers are expecting a corporate debt binge this month,

that's how companies can lock in those low rates to potentially do even more deals.

And there have been a few groups that have benefited from all this activity. Wall Street banks have

seen their revenues boosted because of all the fees, then there are employees. The M&A boost has

created a premium for talent, which means salaries. For some employees, have increased.

Yoshihide Suga, last week announced that he will step down as Japan's Prime Minister.

It took the country by surprise, given that Suga had only taken the role last year.

Now, compare that to his predecessor Shinzo Abe, who led the country for more than eight years.

Suga's popularity knows that after he was unable to reign in the country's COVID-19 outbreak,

and pushed through with the locally unpopular Tokyo Olympics, he also lost the confidence of

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