Global M&A deal rush fades in third quarter as rising borrowing costs bite
Worldwide M&A activity totalled $993 billion in Q3, down 41% from Q2 — the first sub-$1 trillion quarter since Q2 2025 — as a surge in borrowing costs gave dealmakers pause.
Global dealmaking lost momentum in the third quarter of 2026 as surging borrowing costs gave corporate buyers pause, LSEG data shows.
Worldwide M&A activity totalled $993 billion in the last three months, down 41% compared with Q2 2026 — the first quarter below $1 trillion since Q2 2025.
Banca Monte dei Paschi’s $32 billion bid for Banco BPM and Gold Fields’ $25.7 billion bid for Northern Star Resources were among 10 deals over $10 billion announced in the quarter — the lowest number of quarterly megadeals since Q4 2024.
The benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield hit 5.34% on Thursday, its highest level since 2002, after the biggest quarterly rise this century in the three months to September.
Morgan Stanley global M&A head John Collins said higher yields “makes valuations sometimes a little tougher”, but added: “That said, the impact is hard to quantify, so I’m not ready to call a slowdown based on what we are seeing.”
Goldman Sachs EMEA M&A co-head Carsten Woehrn said: “Corporates are still looking for scale or access to markets and technologies they are not in.” He sees total deal value exceeding the 2021 peak if the pace continues.
Worldwide M&A is up 28% year-to-date at $3.9 trillion — the highest level in the period since 2001 — even as the number of deals fell 8%, to levels not seen since 2020, according to LSEG.
Sources
- Reuters, “Global M&A deal rush fades in third quarter as rising borrowing costs bite” (Oct 1, 2026): https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/global-ma-deal-rush-fades-third-quarter-rising-borrowing-costs-bite-2026-10-01/
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