What’s Driving the Surge in Deal-Making?

Exchanges

Goldman Sachs

Business

4.4 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 24 November 2025

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Despite a year marked by geopolitical uncertainty, higher tariffs, and slowing growth, deal-making activity is surging in 2025. So can this current wave of M&A activity continue? Goldman Sachs’ Stephan Feldgoise, head of the Global Mergers & Acquisition business in Global Banking & Markets, discusses the outlook with Allison Nathan. This episode was recorded on November 20, 2025. The opinions and views expressed herein are as of the date of publication, subject to change without notice, and may not necessarily reflect the institutional views of Goldman Sachs or its affiliates. The material provided is intended for informational purposes only, and does not constitute investment advice, a recommendation from any Goldman Sachs entity to take any particular action, or an offer or solicitation to purchase or sell any securities or financial products. This material may contain forward-looking statements. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Neither Goldman Sachs nor any of its affiliates make any representations or warranties, express or implied, as to the accuracy or completeness of the statements or information contained herein and disclaim any liability whatsoever for reliance on such information for any purpose. Each name of a third-party organization mentioned is the property of the company to which it relates, is used here strictly for informational and identification purposes only and is not used to imply any ownership or license rights between any such company and Goldman Sachs. A transcript is provided for convenience and may differ from the original video or audio content. Goldman Sachs is not responsible for any errors in the transcript. This material should not be copied, distributed, published, or reproduced in whole or in part or disclosed by any recipient to any other person without the express written consent of Goldman Sachs. Disclosures applicable to research with respect to issuers, if any, mentioned herein are available through your Goldman Sachs representative or at http://www.gs.com/research/hedge.html. Goldman Sachs does not endorse any candidate or any political party. © 2025 Goldman Sachs. All rights reserved. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Despite a year marked by geopolitical uncertainty, higher tariffs, and slowing growth,
0:10.1	we've seen a surge in deal-making activity in 2025.
0:13.7	So what has the M&A market been so resilient?
0:16.4	And can this current wave of M&A activity continue in 26?
0:20.6	To help unpack the state of deals and chart the road ahead,
0:23.6	I'm joined by Goldman Sachs' Stefan Feldgoyce,
0:26.1	head of global mergers and acquisitions
0:27.7	in the firm's global banking and markets business.
0:33.1	Stefan, welcome back to the program.
0:35.1	Thanks for having me.
0:36.4	Stefan, when we spoke about a year ago, the M&A market was just beginning to show signs of life.
0:41.9	But since then, we've actually had a long list of headwinds. We've had Liberation Day that brought higher tariffs and a lot of concerns about sharply higher tariffs.
0:51.2	There's been broader policy uncertainty, macro uncertainty, and most recently,
0:55.9	of course, we've had the longest U.S. government shut down in history. So a lot of headwinds,
1:01.4	but the M&A activity has actually picked up very sizably. So why is that given all of these
1:07.0	headwinds? It's interesting. It's actually very interesting. The first quarter of the year, as you said, there was a fair degree of uncertainty post-election heading into a 2025 where people weren't sure how it would play out. And so the first quarter was relatively quiet, I would say. April was extremely quiet post-liberation day. Heading out of April into May, you started to see a crescendo of transactions,
1:28.2	particularly on the larger side. And then I would say the last three months heading into the fall
1:32.2	in the winter has rivaled what we saw in 2021, which has been the most active. In fact, in my career,
1:37.9	I did not think we would look back and see a period as active as we saw in 2021. The last quarter,
1:43.3	the last three, four months have rivaled 2021.
1:46.4	And if you look at the year in total now, the number of $10 billion transactions is up 100% over
1:52.0	24. And so it's not just become an active year. It's become one of the most active years in history.
	...

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