Interactive
The first three months of 2026 saw a steady rise in global M&A activity, with overall deal value and volume growing 28% and 9%, respectively, compared with the first quarter of 2025. Other findings from the most recent quarter: Consumer products, healthcare and life sciences, and financial services contributed the most to deal value growth. Europe, the Middle East, and Africa emerged as the region with the biggest gains, with deal value increasing 61% compared with the same quarter in 2025. Venture capital was up 167% as a result of major investments in AI companies.
Megadeals set the pace
As we noted in Looking Back at M&A in 2025: Behind the Great Rebound, companies are turning to M&A to reinvent themselves in the face of technology disruption, a post-globalization economy, and shifting profit pools. The Great Rebound of 2025 continued in the first quarter of 2026 powered by megadeals valued at greater than $5 billion, which continue to represent nearly half of all deal value. The average deal size has risen by 13%. That trend extends to divestitures: The value of divestitures in the first quarter of 2026 is relatively unchanged from 2025, but the number of deals dropped by 10%.
Improving the odds for big bets
Even before massively scaling an enterprise through a megadeal, numerous core business processes and functions, perhaps even the core value proposition, may already be clamoring for transformation through AI, automation, and nearshoring. As they pursue megadeals, companies will face a series of tough, make-or-break decisions to ensure value creation as a much larger combined company. Winners will use the deal to transform. They’ll avoid getting caught up in resolving internal complexity in the first wave of change and instead focus integration on a short list of key value drivers.
M&A Report 2026
How reinvention sparked the great M&A rebound.
First published in mai 2026