A record run of fourteen $10bn-plus transactions pushed global deal value past the $1tn mark in Q3 2025 — and bankers say the long‑promised Trump‑era boom may finally be here.

Global mergers and acquisitions roared back this summer. In the third quarter of 2025, the value of deals announced worldwide crossed the $1 trillion threshold, powered by an unprecedented burst of megadeals — fourteen transactions priced at $10 billion or more. The sheer heft of those headlines has delivered a welcome windfall for Wall Street and City dealmakers, who are booking their fattest pipelines since the pandemic-era surge. More than a talking point, it is a decisive shift in boardroom appetite: after two cautious years defined by higher rates, unpredictable antitrust enforcement and geopolitical shocks, chief executives are again willing to pay up for scale, technology and supply‑chain security.

The summer’s marquee transactions spanned sectors and strategies. In U.S. rail, Union Pacific’s proposed $85 billion takeover of rival Norfolk Southern set the tone for industrial consolidation and stoked debate over network efficiency and competition. In natural resources, Anglo American’s roughly $50 billion combination with Canada’s Teck Resources aimed to bulk up in copper just as the global electrification push accelerates. Cybersecurity — still an M&A magnet amid rising AI‑enabled threats — saw Palo Alto Networks agree a $25 billion purchase of CyberArk, a bet that privileged‑access management will be welded directly into broader cloud defenses.

But the deal that best captured the quarter’s audacity came from gaming. Electronic Arts, the publisher behind FIFA, Madden and Battlefield, agreed to be taken private in a record $55 billion leveraged buyout led by Silver Lake and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, with financing anchored by JPMorgan. The buyout, the largest of its kind, eclipsed the 2007 TXU benchmark and punctured the notion that sponsor‑backed megadeals were indefinitely on ice. After months of secondary sales and minority stakes, private equity found the confidence — and the debt capacity — to swing big again.

All told, the combination of corporate confidence and selective sponsor aggression has pushed year‑to‑date global M&A comfortably above last year’s pace. Bankers say the quality of conversations also looks different: rather than opportunistic takes on distressed assets, boards are leaning into foundational moves that reshape profit pools for the AI decade. A surge in cross‑border activity underscores that point. North American buyers led the tally by value, but Asia‑Pacific strategics and sovereign‑backed investors featured prominently — particularly where critical minerals, semiconductors and data‑center infrastructure were in play.

Behind the resurgence lies a clearing macro picture. While policy rates remain elevated, inflation’s drift toward targets and a more stable Treasury curve have reduced the mark‑to‑market risk on committed bridges. Investment‑grade spreads are cooperative, the loan markets are demonstrably open for business, and the collateralized loan obligation machine has rediscovered its appetite for new paper. With equity markets hovering near records and volatility subdued, boards perceive a rare window to trade up for assets they have eyed since 2022.

The political backdrop in Washington is also shaping behavior. With Donald Trump back in the White House advocating lower taxes, lighter‑touch rulemaking and a more permissive posture toward domestic consolidation, dealmakers argue that the much‑heralded M&A boom of a Trump administration is belatedly coming to fruition. The White House has not abandoned scrutiny — rail and telecom combinations will still face a gantlet — but the temperature has cooled. Corporations that spent the last cycle modeling ‘Plan B’ divestitures for hostile agencies are again drafting ‘Plan A’ megadeals with confidence that remedies, not outright vetoes, will be the prevailing currency.

Fee pools are reflecting the shift. Advisory and financing revenues swelled through September as bulge‑bracket firms converted long‑nurtured dialogues into signed agreements. Syndicate desks, stuck in first gear for much of 2023–24, are now distributing sizeable underwrites across both bond and loan buyers. Compensation committees have noticed: several U.S. and European banks are reviewing mid‑year bonus bumps for senior rainmakers tied to closed fees, even as back‑office hiring remains deliberately lean. If the pipeline holds, fourth‑quarter league tables could look like 2021 in miniature.

That is not to say animal spirits have returned indiscriminately. The number of announced deals remains below pre‑pandemic norms, a reminder that boards are still rationing risk and that valuations in some corners — from AI infrastructure to branded consumer goods — embed heroic growth assumptions. The discipline shows up in structures: earn‑outs and contingent value rights are back; reverse break fees have fattened; and acquirers are increasingly pairing stock with cash to preserve ratings. Private‑equity buyers, chastened by slower exits and prolonged hold periods, are prioritizing platform add‑ons and carve‑outs that can be integrated quickly and levered prudently.

Regulatory risk, though receding from the front page, remains the key swing factor. The U.S. antitrust agencies are still testing the outer limits of vertical‑merger theories, and Brussels continues to scrutinize Big Tech’s encroachment into adjacencies from payments to health data. In London, a newly assertive Competition and Markets Authority has made clear it will not be a soft touch. The lesson from Q3’s deal slate is that early, transparent remedy offers — divesting overlapping lines, open‑sourcing APIs, ring‑fencing sensitive data — can keep the narrative focused on industrial logic rather than courtroom theatrics.

If there is a single thematic through‑line to 2025’s megadeals, it is ‘capex arbitrage.’ Boards are using M&A to accelerate years of organic investment in AI, energy transition and logistics modernization into months. Buying a proven GPU cloud operator, a copper mine with development permits, or a cybersecurity leader with deep enterprise embed, may be cheaper, faster and less execution‑risky than building from scratch. The upshot: deal diligence has expanded well beyond finance and legal to include transformer‑model roadmaps, data‑residency regimes and grid‑interconnection queues. Technical advisors — long the quiet corner of the process — are suddenly at the main table.

Financing, too, has evolved. The EA buyout showcased a more collaborative model among private capital pools: sovereign wealth funds providing patient equity, direct lenders anchoring tranches alongside the banks, and public‑market investors keen to own the new money at attractive original‑issue discounts. As the shadow‑banking ecosystem deepens, sponsors have more options to stitch together large packages without over‑relying on volatile broadly syndicated markets. That flexibility, in turn, makes corporate sellers more willing to entertain sizeable separations, knowing a credible path to cash at closing exists.

Skeptics point to fragilities that could still derail the rally: a sharper‑than‑expected growth slowdown; an oil price shock; renewed tariff volleys; or an adverse court ruling that resets legal risk. They also note that boardroom confidence is famously cyclical — and that today’s $1 trillion quarter benefits from a handful of very large tickets that may not be easily repeatable. Yet in conversations with directors and advisers across New York, London and Singapore this month, a consistent view emerged: the ‘permission structure’ for big, strategic moves is back. Boards that have spent two years pruning and simplifying now feel they have earned the right to swing for the next decade.

For investors, the near‑term implications are straightforward. Bank shares — which rallied into late August as the pipeline swelled — could see further support if signings translate cleanly into closings and fee recognition. Industrials and IT services exposed to integration work should benefit, even as some targets experience the usual merger‑arbitrage discount. Longer term, the returns from this wave will hinge on execution: integrating disparate data stacks; delivering promised capex synergies without cutting muscle; and steering complex transactions through multiple regulatory regimes while keeping teams focused on customers. The best acquirers will use the moment to simplify — not to build empires for their own sake.

The third quarter will not resolve the perennial arguments about M&A cycles. But it has re‑established an important truth: in periods of technological discontinuity and shifting geopolitics, consolidation is a rational tool — and sometimes the only tool — for corporate renewal. With fourteen $10‑plus billion deals signed and more rumored for the fourth quarter, the odds favor a strong finish to 2025. Whether historians call it a ‘Trump boom’ or simply the return of boardroom nerve, this was the quarter when the deals got big again — and the world noticed.

Sources

Sources: Financial Times reporting on September 29–30, 2025 indicating global M&A topped $1tn in Q3 with fourteen $10bn+ deals; Reuters reports confirming Electronic Arts’ $55bn leveraged buyout in September 2025; additional contemporaneous market summaries from Bloomberg and S&P Global.