This is exchanges at Goldman Sachs and I'm Allison Nathan a senior strategist in Goldman Sachs research.

Today we're going to talk about the record wave of M&A activity that's showing no signs of stopping,

even in the face of surging inflation and rising economic uncertainty.

To do that, I'm joined here heading

into the end of year 2021 by Mark Sorrell and Stefan Feldge,

the co-heads of the Global Mergers and Acquisitions

business in Goldman Sachs's

Invest in Banking Division. Mark, Stefan, welcome back to the program.

Thanks a lot, Allison. Thanks for having us. By almost any measure,

M&A activity absolutely shattered records in 2021.

Mark, can you start with a year in review?

How did Deal activity play out?

So thanks for the question, Allison.

As you said, it's been a remarkable year and I think that the theme I would emphasize is really how broad and consistent activity has been.

So when you look at every region, every industry, every size of transaction, every type of transaction, it's really been a consistent

surge in activity through the year. I think the other thing that's been unusual about

this year is how consistent it's been throughout the year. Often we have an

environment where there'll be one quarter of a pause when there's a macro blip or something, a geopolitical blip or something else happens.

You know, we really have had a year of real consistency and real momentum and we see that continuing.

So for me the takeaway here is real breadth and consistency of activity through the year.

But we have had some lips. We've had now we're living through Omicron and the related growth concerns with that.

Inflation is now a key concern. So the environment does feel a bit different than the last time we spoke to you all in July

...