(19 December 2025 – Global) Global merger and acquisition value surpassed US$4.8 trillion in 2026, the second highest on record.
Cross-border transactions increased 46 percent with the US and UK emerging as the most targeted markets. There were five offers over US$50 billion including multiple bids for Warner Bros by Netflix and Paramount.
Q4 deal flow is already the largest on record for the Americas with more to come, Reuters reports.
“M&A today is all about the mega deals, the race for scale. Large caps have clearly outperformed small caps. And you’ve seen that also in the M&A market” commented JPMorgan Global Head of Advisory and M&A, Anu Aiyengar.
“It feels like we are pivoting into a strong multi-year M&A run. There’s plenty of reasons to see this peaking beyond any prior cycle,” said Eamon Brabazon, co-head of global M&A at Bank of America.
Australia’s top companies are cooling on mergers and acquisitions (M&A) despite a record breaking run for equity markets according to East & Partners’ new M&A Index in partnership with Capital Brief.
The exclusive research shows one in ten large corporates were discouraged to engage due to concerns over Trump-related volatility. Around one in five (21.5 percent) of Australia’s largest corporates are pausing M&A due to Trump related uncertainty while fewer than one in ten are actively hunting acquisition targets.
The new M&A Index, to be released every six months, taps into how 93 of Australia’s largest companies by revenue are thinking about transactions in the current environment and interviews their top decision makers including CFOs and corporate treasurers.
