M&A Deals Reached Near-Record Levels in 2025

Wall Street began the year hopeful that 2025 would usher in a wave of dealmaking.

Dealmakers got their wish, as this year has seen an almost record-breaking number of mergers and acquisitions (M&A), Reuters reported Thursday (Dec. 18).

Bankers and lawyers said the trend will continue into next year as companies take advantage of more relaxed antitrust oversight and a favorable market, the report said.

So far this year, there have been a record 70 deals worth more than $10 billion each, according to the report. Twenty-two of those deals happened during the fourth quarter. Despite the turbulence churned up by White House tariffs, deals have already exceeded $4.8 trillion this year, a 41% increase over 2024.

It’s the second-biggest year on record, surpassed only by 2021, when rates close to zero and COVID stimulus led to a $6-plus trillion year for M&A deals, the report said.

“M&A today is all about the mega deals, the race for scale,” said Anu Aiyengar, JPMorgan’s head of advisory and M&A, per the report. “Large caps have clearly outperformed small caps. And you’ve seen that also in the M&A market.”

This year has seen four deals worth more than $50 billion, five when factoring in the two offers for Warner Bros. Discovery: $82 billion from Netflix and $108 billion from Paramount.

It’s also been a big year for bank mergers, with regulators in the United States approving combinations at their fastest pace in more than three decades.

The average time to finalize a deal following its announcement has fallen to four months this year, the shortest span since at least 1990, the Financial Times reported last month. During the President Joe Biden administration, the average approval time peaked at close to 7 months.

These quicker approvals are easing what dealmakers viewed as a pain point in consolidating the over 4,000 regional banks in the U.S. The past few months have seen deals worth more than a combined $24 billion.

Nearly 150 bank mergers worth around $45 billion had closed by November, on pace to make this the industry’s busiest year for deals since 2021.