US dealmaking is down in the new Trump era but accelerating in other parts of the world.
The volume of announced US mergers and acquisitions as measured in dollar value fell 5.7% for the year through April 28, to $586.5 million, when compared with the same period last year, according to Dealogic data.
That is the slowest start for US M&A in two years.
On the other hand, deal volume outside of the US posted its best year to date result since 2022. Announced mergers in the rest of the world surged 43% in dollar value through April 28 from the same period a year ago, to $702 million.
US dealmaking had a tepid stretch in April as President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement triggered widespread uncertainty about the economy and ushered in a period of extreme volatility for markets.
Some companies put deals on hold as they waited for greater clarity about the path ahead. On April 9, the president paused many of the Liberation Day duties for 90 days to give countries time to negotiate new trade deals with the US.
“M&A is like a barometer of business confidence, and people are feeling uncertain and the changes are very hard for boardrooms to work out,” Lucinda Guthrie, head of data provider Mergermarket, told Yahoo Finance last week.
“A number of processes have been pulled or paused” through April ahead of planned public announcements, Guthrie added.
US M&A volume fell 8% during the month through April 28, according to Dealogic. Merger volume across the rest of the world gained 2%.
The subdued start to 2025 is a disappointment for many on Wall Street who hoped the president’s economic agenda would unleash a new dealmaking boom.
Goldman CEO David Solomon told Bloomberg on Tuesday that “policy actions to date have raised the level of uncertainty to a degree that I don’t think is healthy for investment and growth, and I think it’s going to be important that we get more clarity.”
There have been signs of some activity, however. The two largest deals of the year so far — Alphabet’s (GOOG) $32 billion agreement to acquire Wiz and Sycamore Partners’ move to take Walgreens private — happened in March, according to Dealogic, as did eight of the other top 15 deals.
And things did improve in February and March, before Trump’s April 2 announcement. In fact, the merger advisory business at Goldman Sachs (GS), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), and Morgan Stanley (MS) climbed 5% collectively during the first quarter from a year ago, to $2.8 billion.
