Blog — May 14, 2025
Navigating M&A Trends During Market Volatility
By Joe Mantone, Vanya Damyanova, Brian Scheid, and Annie Sabater
Key Findings
- March’s announced M&A value totaled $339.82 billion, the most in a month since May 2022, and 47.3% of the first quarter’s activity.
- The total value of US M&A deals increased 29.7% quarter over quarter and 2.0% year over year to $383.12 billion.
- The aggregate amount of global equity issuance offered worldwide fell to $79.16 billion, down $44.1 billion or nearly 36% from the fourth quarter of 2024.
The outlook for dealmaking once again took a negative turn.
Market volatility and economic uncertainty in the early part of 2025 overshadowed a first-quarter increase in global M&A activity and US initial public offerings. Coming into the year, expectations were high for a pickup in dealmaking, which had been muted ever since the Federal Reserve started raising interest rates in 2022.
The volatility increased on concerns of fallout from trade disagreements stemming from President Donald Trump’s tariff plan. The average close of the VIX — the Chicago Board Options Exchange S&P 500 volatility index — increased to 26.5 in March after recording an average close of 16.9 during the first two months of 2025.
The economic uncertainty stemming from the trade fallout remains elevated because the Trump administration’s plan is evolving with tariffs being adjusted, scaled back and partly delayed. The volatility makes transacting difficult as it becomes harder for companies and investors to agree on valuations of targets in M&A deals and issuers in equity transactions.
Before the market dislocation, the first quarter offered some signs of life for dealmaking. The total value of global M&A announcements jumped in March, and that led to the quarter’s total value rising year over year and quarter over quarter. Private equity activity and large deals in the US drove the increase. However, M&A volumes fell in other parts of the globe such as Europe and the Asia-Pacific regions.
Similar dynamics were at play in the equity market. The total value of US IPOs also grew in the first quarter, and that was a bright spot among global equity issuance activity, which was down quarter over quarter and about flat year over year.