This is exchanges at Goldman Sachs where we discuss developments currently shaping markets, industries, and the global economy.

I'm Jake Seward, global head of corporate communications here at the firm.

Today we're going to talk about the latest in M&A and whether the sharp rebound and activity that we've been seeing will continue.

We're joined by Stephen Feldge and Mark Sorrell, the global co-heads of mergers and acquisitions,

in the Investment Banking Division here at Goldman Sachs.

Stefan, Mark, welcome to the program.

Stephan, I'll start with you.

Set the stage for us.

Talk a little bit about M&A in the tail end of 2020. Obviously we saw a big comeback in activity in the second half after

deals sort of ground to a halt when the pandemic first hit. Talk a little bit about the two

parts of last year and the scale of the uptick in volume that we saw.

It's interesting it was definitely a tale of two cities from a global M&A perspective.

The first half of the year was down significantly as you mentioned but you know just

statistically just to give some perspective from September 1st through the end of

the year it was the most active M&A market in history with almost 1.8

trillion inactivity, which effectively was double the first half of the year.

And I'll tell you a little bit of foreshadowing as we look towards 2021, you know, that the year has started off

double again of what the first half of last

year was which was the pre-pandemic period but you know companies really

entrenched and as we came out of the first half of the year once there became what I'll call

some lights at the end of the tunnel around the

potential for vaccines, companies moved aggressively and to position themselves both from a

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