Worldwide M&A jumped nearly 50% in 2025 to about $4.5 trillion, the second-highest level in more than 40 years

Global M&A activity jumped nearly 50% in 2025, reaching $4.5 trillion, based on data from the London Stock Exchange Group. It’s the highest annual total since 2021, when the pandemic frenzy pushed deals past $5 trillion.

Companies across media, rail, and industrials locked in 68 separate transactions worth $10 billion or more each. That’s the biggest number of megadeals ever recorded.

Companies jumped on cheap financing, strong markets, and lighter U.S. rules under President Donald Trump to close deals that would’ve been impossible under tighter oversight. Investment banks didn’t waste the opportunity either, collecting $135 billion in fees this year, just shy of their all-time record. Over half of that came from deals involving U.S. companies, totaling $2.3 trillion, the biggest share since 1998.

“I haven’t seen large-scale M&A like this in a decade,” said Tony Kim, co-president of Centerview Partners. “These are deals which are really transforming industries. Scaled M&A requires a lot of important ingredients in the mix to succeed, and we seem to have all of those elements today.”

Netflix, Union Pacific lead record megadeals across sectors

The year’s two biggest M&A deals came out of entertainment and transport. Netflix and Paramount are both fighting to acquire Warner Bros Discovery, while Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern are joining up to create a $250 billion railroad empire.

These giant tie-ups mirror 2021’s headline deals, like WarnerMedia merging with Discovery and Canadian Pacific’s $31 billion purchase of Kansas City Southern.

Regulatory changes helped fuel the new wave of consolidation. Trump’s second term in the White House delivered weaker enforcement, and that opened the door for companies to get bolder.

“What we see with corporate clients is a willingness to take on regulatory risk for transactions that are strategic,” said Andrew Nussbaum, co-chair of the executive committee at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. “They see a willingness of the regulators to engage in constructive dialogue.”

That momentum hit a wall in early April when Trump slapped sweeping new tariffs, dubbed ‘liberation day’, across multiple trade fronts. But it didn’t take long for dealmaking to get back on track. The second half of 2025 ended with two straight quarters of over $1 trillion in M&A, a feat not seen since 2019. “Our momentum built post the recovery from liberation day and has just continued to build since then,” said Daniel Mendelow, U.S. investment banking co-head at Evercore. “There’s a lot of pent-up interest in M&A.”

Smaller transactions didn’t see the same surge. The overall number of deals actually dropped by 7%, hitting the lowest level since 2016. While the dollar volume climbed, fewer deals were getting done overall.

Private equity dealmaking rises slower with fewer exits

Private equity trailed behind public company activity. The sector saw just a 25% rise, hitting $889 billion in total deals. Companies struggled to sell assets, but a few high-profile buyouts kept the lights on. The biggest was the $55 billion takeover of Electronic Arts, led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, with help from Silver Lake and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.

“The general narrative is that sponsors are not active, but there were some large take-private transactions,” said Anu Aiyengar, global head of advisory and M&A at JPMorgan Chase. She added that even with markets hitting all-time highs, there were still mispriced assets being snapped up, thanks to financing coming in from all sides.

There were signs of life in the IPO market, too. Companies like Medline and Verisure went public, giving private equity shops another path for exit.

“Over the next couple of years there’s room for more activity, and we certainly feel the sponsor wave in particular is only just gaining momentum,” said Andre Kelleners, co-head of European investment banking at Goldman Sachs.

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