M&A bankers are facing a longer wait between deals being announced and being able to cash in when they complete than at any point in the past eight years.

Analysis from the Association for Financial Markets in Europe puts the average time to complete intra-European deals at 71.9 days in 2016. That's up from 61.3 days in all of 2010 and 68.7 days in 2015. The current lag time means the M&A market is back to its levels in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. The following year, deals took an average 71.7 days to get over the line, according to Afme.