United States

What you need to know

• Record M&A activity concentrated at the top: H1 2026 saw 5,760 announced deals worth approximately US$1.54 trillion, with activity concentrated in mega and giga deals.
• Strategic buyers dominate, as the middle market lags: Large-cap corporates are leveraging strong balance sheets for transformational deals, while middle-market M&A remains constrained by financing costs and valuation gaps.
• PE activity slowed, alternative liquidity rising: Private equity remains selective, with add-ons, and alternative liquidity structures driving activity.
• AI is reshaping deal flow and valuations: Capital is shifting away from software-focused M&A toward AI infrastructure, power generation, data centers, and AI-amplified sectors like healthcare.
• Regulatory risk is evolving, not disappearing: Merger review is more transparent under the current administration, but active scrutiny and CFIUS execution risk persist in key sectors.
  

The M&A state of play

U.S. M&A made headlines for reaching record heights in 2026—yet the increase in transactions from the first half of 2025 was eclipsed by the increase in deal value, a trend that defined the second half of 2025. The M&A market continues to be driven by large-cap corporate buyers, with value concentrated in a small number of very large deals, rather than a broad-based recovery. A wide gap has emerged between large-cap transactions that can clear or avoid financing, command premium valuations, and survive execution; and middle-market deals that face persistent financing costs, valuation gaps, and exit constraints.

2026's market-defining transactions

In the first half of 2026, there were 5,760 announced deals with an aggregate disclosed value of approximately US$1.54 trillion. This was a 6% increase in deal count and a 50% increase in aggregate disclosed value compared with the first half of 2025, which recorded 5,415 announced deals and US$1.03 trillion in disclosed value. Compared to the second half of 2025, deal count for the first half of 2026 has increased by 8%, with aggregate deal value decreasing by about 7%.

The record volume through the first half of 2026 was driven by not just mega deals (transactions exceeding US$10 billion in value), but giga deals (transactions valued at US$50 billion or more). The largest U.S. M&A deals announced in the first half of 2026 included NextEra Energy Inc.’s proposed merger with Dominion Energy Inc. (US$118.85 billion), followed by Deutsche Telekom AG’s reported potential acquisition of a 47.174% interest in T-Mobile US Inc.

The top 10 publicly announced M&A deals in the first half of 2026 were as follows: 

Source: Mergermarket

Strategics scale while sponsors stay selective

Large corporate acquirers dominate the top of the market. Benefiting from strong balance sheets that can withstand the pressure of higher financing costs and market volatility, corporate acquirers have seized the moment, expanding and reshaping operations and scope through acquisitions. In many cases, these acquirers have fortified their balance sheets through divestitures of non-core assets, rationalizing operations and freeing up capital. Looking beyond the megadeal headliners, middle market M&A remains impacted by economic and geopolitical uncertainty, and slower to take off. Across the board, ample capital has been redeployed to AI and the energy and infrastructure necessary to support it, as well as to strengthen and diversify supply chains.

In contrast, private equity investments and exits slowed in the first half of 2026 amid market volatility, more costly capital, AI-related disruption in software valuations, and geopolitical uncertainty. Interest in software deals fell sharply in the first half of 2026, while demand for AI infrastructure soared. As holding periods extend and deal count falls, dry powder remains substantial—roughly US$1.13 trillion through June 2026—and sponsors face pressure to deploy capital raised during the 2022–2024 vintages. Sponsors have concentrated capital on higher-conviction, larger transactions rather than deploying broadly across the middle market. A majority of U.S. private equity’s activity has been by way of add-on acquisitions by existing portfolio companies with established financing bases, rather than investments in new platforms, which continue to face significant valuation and leverage constraints.

Private capital’s exit backlog has necessitated an increased use of alternative structures to achieve liquidity in lieu of conventional M&A exits. Among these, continuation vehicles and secondaries enable sponsors to hold high-performing assets for an extended period, rather than sell into a soft market. Strategic buyers, unencumbered by leverage conditions and investment horizons, are increasingly serving as buyers for private equity exits while sponsor-to-sponsor transactions remain constrained.

Regulatory risk is evolving, not disappearing

The U.S. antitrust enforcement environment has shifted under the second Trump administration toward a more transparent and predictable merger review process, including the return of early terminations, targeted Second Requests, and a model timing agreement. Scrutiny remains active, however, and pending litigation over HSR filing requirements continues to complicate deal planning. The FTC challenged nine mergers in 2025 (versus five in the prior administration’s final year), with technology, national security sensitive sectors, and healthcare remaining squarely in focus. CFIUS remains another source of execution risk for transactions involving sensitive technology, data, infrastructure, and national-security assets.

Technology continues to dominate among sectors, as AI reprices software and the physical economy

Technology remains the largest M&A sector globally and in the U.S. with US$284.25 billion of announced transaction value across 1,193 deals, followed by Energy & Natural Resources in terms of value (with US$275.12 billion across 334 deals) and Industrials in terms of deal count (with 1,173 deals valued at US$203.32 billion). Business Services recorded relatively high volume (903 deals) but the lowest aggregate value among the identified sectors, at US$27.82 billion.

In the technology sector, AI is forcing a repricing of categories of assets by exposure, separating AI-resilient platforms from potentially vulnerable business models. Software-focused M&A has declined sharply as investors discount valuations in light of concerns that generative AI could erode competitive advantages, compress margins, and reduce the long-term value of certain legacy SaaS business models. Capital is instead flowing toward assets critical to support AI, such as power generation, data centers, cooling technologies, infrastructure and industrials; and sectors, such as business services and healthcare, which are expected to be amplified rather than crippled by AI. The race to secure generation capacity to feed AI data centers has turned utility and infrastructure assets into some of the market's most sought after targets evidenced by NextEra's merger with Dominion Energy, Constellation Energy's acquisition of Calpine and GIP/EQT's proposed acquisition of AES. Absent from these charts and numbers are OpenAI’s US$122 billion and Anthropic’s US$65 billion funding rounds. Meanwhile, middle-market buyers are gravitating towards businesses with physical assets, labor-intensive operations, or contracted revenue streams.