Since Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election, there's been a lot of talk on Wall Street about the return of animal spirits.

People are excited for a deals and M&A comeback.

Basically, it is game on for mergers and acquisitions again.

Wall Street excited, I think, for less regulation under Trump.

Right now, everyone wants a piece of the action. Make no mistake.

You know, we certainly think that 2025 will be the year of deals.

Loads of dealmaking also fits in nicely with the Donald Trump brand that he's crafted for

himself over the years.

Donald Trump has very studiously portrayed himself as a dealmaker.

So anyone who wants to do deals is going to see a president who kind of speaks their language,

who is in favor of companies doing mergers and acquisitions,

and is going to remove some of the red tape that has been clogging up the system, really,

for the last few years. So in theory, Trump is going to be basically catnip for MNA.

But as inauguration day gets closer and closer, that theory is looking like it could be, in practice,

more complicated than it originally appeared.

It's pretty widely expected that President Trump is going to be really good for deal makers

and companies that want to merge with each other.

But a recent deal made us realize that actually maybe life under Trump might be no easier

for a lot of these people than life under Biden.

I'm Mikhaila Tendera from the Financial Times.

Today on Behind the Money, why expectations of an M&A bonanza might not hold up in the next Trump administration.

Thank you. might not hold up in the next Trump administration. I'm John Foley. I'm the head of the Lex column here at the FT. The Lex column is kind of the opinion section on companies and markets and deals with the back page of the newspaper for anyone who still reads physical newspapers.

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