Global M&A Hits Record $2.8 Trillion in First Half
Claire Weston
Global M&A volume reached $2.83 trillion in H1 2026, up 49% year-on-year, smashing the 2021 record — yet total deal count fell to a six-year low, signalling a market where the bets are bigger but fewer.
More money, fewer deals — what does that mean?
H1 deal value hit $2.83 trillion, surpassing the previous peak of $2.74 trillion in H1 2021 — the highest since LSEG began tracking in 1980.
Yet total deal count fell 9% year-on-year to its lowest since 2020. This means → the M&A market is splitting in two: mega-deals are booming while smaller transactions are freezing up.
In plain terms = big corporations are on a buying spree, but mid-sized deals are retreating as energy-price swings and AI disruption risk keep smaller players cautious.
Why are mega-deals exploding?
Deals above $10 billion reached 47, up 62% year-on-year — also a record.
Dominion Energy and NextEra Energy merged to form a $420 billion U.S. utility giant. This reflects the surging power demand from AI data centres — energy has become AI's hard bottleneck.
SpaceX acquired coding-assistant tool Cursor in a $60 billion all-stock deal shortly after its landmark IPO, making tech the most active sector in this M&A wave.
What other blockbuster deals stood out?
Fox Corporation acquired streaming-hardware maker Roku for $22 billion; Unilever's food division merged with McCormick in a $66 billion combination.
Martin Marietta Materials bought limestone supplier Lhoist's North American operations for $13.5 billion; Rocket Lab acquired satellite operator Iridium Communications for $8 billion.
Big pharma also launched a wave of biotech acquisitions to replenish drug pipelines. This means → the current cycle is not a single-sector story — energy, tech, consumer, and pharma are all firing at once.
The U.S. and Europe surged — what happened to Asia-Pacific?
U.S. M&A deal value grew 77% year-on-year; Europe surged 105% — but European deal count dropped 14.2%, hit hard by the Iran conflict.
Asia-Pacific slipped roughly 2.4%. In plain terms = the U.S.-Europe boom is driven by mega-deals, while Asia-Pacific is under broad pressure.
The UK was an outlier: foreign buyers snapped up London-listed companies, drawn by valuation discounts relative to U.S. peers — industrials were especially popular.
How much did private equity and investment banks make?
PE-backed M&A rose 54% to $601 billion, giving the industry a critical exit route for trillions in ageing portfolio assets.
Goldman Sachs, with over $1 trillion in advisory deal volume, is on track to be the cycle's biggest beneficiary.
JPMorgan's global M&A head Charlie Bouckaert said: "Boards are acting — companies realise standing still carries its own risk, and urgency is overtaking uncertainty."
How long can this wave last?
Bank of America's global M&A chairman Steve Baronoff expects "this deal window to extend through most of 2027."
Paul Weiss partner Ben Goodchild said: "We're in a risk-appetite-up environment; boards are reviewing every option, including once-in-a-decade deals."
This means → insiders are broadly bullish, but geopolitics and market volatility are the biggest wildcards for H2 — whether the momentum holds will be the market's central question.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.