Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) reached historic numbers during 2025.
Now, dealmakers are hopeful that 2026 will bring more of the same, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Wednesday (Dec. 31).
This year saw a record 68 transactions valued at least $10 billion, the report said, citing data from LSEG going back to 1980. That brought the average annual deal size to a new high of nearly $227 million as of last week.
“Large deals are driving the market. And when you see big deals, it’s a sign of CEO and boardroom confidence,” Ivan Farman, global co-head of M&A at Bank of America, told the WSJ, adding that his team expects this momentum will continue in 2026 and beyond, spanning various industries.
The WSJ notes that deal activity picked up this year after worries about White House tariffs began to subside, and has not slowed since. One lawyer said she even got messages from clients on Thanksgiving, a time traditionally viewed as “sacrosanct, even on Wall Street,” the report said.
Jonathan Davis, a corporate partner at Kirkland & Ellis, said companies are moving quickly out of fear of being left out.
“For the first time in several years, there’s a growing perception that the failure to act quickly risks losing the asset,” he said, while warning there have been numerous times in recent years when it seemed like dealmaking activity was about to take off before an obstacle appeared.
“I am super bullish, but cautiously so,” he told the WSJ.
As covered here earlier this month, this year has seen four deals worth more than $50 billion, five when considering the two offers for Warner Bros. Discovery: $82 billion from Netflix and $108 billion from Paramount.
Other major deals this year include Union Pacific’s agreement to buy Norfolk Southern for $72 billion, and videogame maker Electronic Arts plan to go private in a $55 billion deal.
It’s also been a big year for bank mergers, with American regulators approving combinations at their fastest pace in more than three decades.
In related news, PYMNTS wrote recently on the role AI is playing in dealmaking, arguing that the results here still depend on “people, processes and disciplined implementation.”
Large language models still need close human supervision, as output quality depends on data clarity and prompt design. Early pilots at a number of companies stalled when teams determined AI struggled with financial nuance without strict guardrails.
As Wells Fargo EVP Kunal Madhok noted, “A lot of studies talk about plug-and-play POCs. That does not generate ROI. The big unlock is rethinking how you do things with the tools.”
