Deal Drivers: Americas provides an in-depth review of M&A activity in 2025.

Tariff volatility undermines American M&A forecasts

Amid a renewed sense of uncertainty, M&A in the Americas as a whole fell back in Q1. Deal volume reached 2,657, a 27.7% year-on-year drop, with an aggregate value of US$540bn, a 7.6% decline. This is the lowest transaction tally in at least three years, though value is still running high by historic standards.

Distortive effect

The largest deals of Q1 had a hugely distortive effect on the highest-value sectors. This was most evident in technology, media and telecoms (TMT), which accrued US$156.4bn worth of deals. That represents a 28.2% year-on-year rise, but was driven by one major deal, as Google made its boldest play in its 26-year history as the tech goliath aims to create a unified security platform for multicloud environments. Meanwhile, energy, mining & utilities (EMU) faltered with a 35.7% year-on-year decline for a total of US$88.5bn and PMB also suffered a similar fall of 19.5% to US$74.2bn.

Outlook heat chart

According to Mergermarket’s heat chart of potential deals, the Northeastern US towers above all other regions, with 763 ‘companies for sale’ stories tracked, almost a third of all stories across the Americas. This emphatic lead is driven by intense potential activity across TMT (226), pharma, medical & biotech (PMB, 148), and industrials & chemicals (I&C, 90).

Published in association with Datasite. The report is also available on datasite.com.