Global deal activity picked up speed through the first eight months of 2026, but a new report from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) warns that the recovery is far more selective than the headline numbers imply, with gains concentrated in a handful of massive transactions while activity across the broader market remains depressed.
Global M&A value rose 15% year over year in the January-to-August 2026 period, exceeding the ten-year average by 11%, according to BCG's M&A Report 2026 released September 21, 2026. But the driving force is a surge in megadeals - transactions valued at $10 billion or more - while lower-tier deal volume has yet to recover to historical norms.
The number of megadeals globally climbed to 37 in the first eight months of 2026, up from 24 during the same period a year earlier and above the 2021 record of 32. That surge gives the aggregate deal value figures their headline glow. Beneath it, however, the picture is more restrained.
Transactions valued below $1 billion remain below longer-term norms even before adjusting for inflation, which would make the shortfall more pronounced. In other words, the boardrooms producing billion-dollar announcements are busy; the middle market is not.
BCG's proprietary M&A Sentiment Index, which combines fundamental market drivers with AI-based analysis of corporate communications, tells a similar story. The index rose to 83 in the first eight months of 2026, up from 79 at the start of the year, but remains well below its long-term average of 100.
Sentiment was strongest in financial institutions and real estate, which registered 108 on the index, followed by health care at 100 and energy at 96. Industrials, consumer, and technology sectors lagged significantly, recording sentiment readings of 66, 64, and 52 respectively.
Despite soft sentiment scores, deal values in technology and consumer sectors continued to grow. Technology, media, and telecommunications remained the largest sector by aggregate deal value, rising 11% year over year, while consumer deal value climbed 20%. The disconnect between sentiment and activity suggests dealmakers in those sectors are transacting despite uncertainty rather than because of conviction.
Regionally, the recovery is uneven. North America led global M&A activity by a wide margin, accounting for more than half of aggregate deal value. Europe posted the strongest percentage growth of any major region, while Asia-Pacific activity declined.
That concentration in North America aligns with what InvestmentNews has tracked domestically. RIA M&A shattered records in the first half of 2026, with 225 transactions involving firms holding at least $100 million in assets between January and June - a nearly 40% jump from the same period in 2025, according to Berkshire Global Advisors. Meanwhile, the RIA dealmaking market is racing toward a potential 500-transaction year, according to Echelon Partners, a pace that would eclipse every prior record.
Nowhere is the M&A recovery's split personality more visible than in financial services.
According to BCG's Regional Perspectives report, it is the only sector running above the long-term average of 100 but the conditions producing that confidence are far from uniform across markets.
US deal value rose 25% in the first seven months of 2026 compared with the same period last year, outpacing the global increase of 19%. But deal volume fell 26% - a steeper decline than the 16% drop globally - and transaction activity across the broader market dropped to its lowest level since the pandemic-disrupted first half of 2020.
The wealth and asset management segment produced some of the year's most consequential transactions. In the UK, Nuveen's proposed $12.9 billion acquisition of Schroders stood as the largest wealth management deal announced through July, part of a broader surge that pushed UK financial institutions and real estate deal value to $67.4 billion - more than double the $31.5 billion recorded over the same period in 2025. While those figures reflect a different market, they signal the scale of consolidation appetite among global asset managers, a trend that is increasingly relevant to US firms evaluating their own strategic options.
European banking consolidation remained a live theme, with UniCredit's ongoing pursuit of Germany's Commerzbank and Italy's Unipol Assicurazioni agreeing to acquire selected assets of Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena for up to $4.0 billion.
These cross-border moves reflect a broader pattern BCG identifies across the financial sector: firms using M&A to build scale, extend geographic reach, and reposition portfolios ahead of further regulatory and competitive change.
BCG's regional data adds one more layer of context worth noting: European dealmaker sentiment, at 100 on the M&A Sentiment Index, is running well ahead of the Americas' reading of 73. That gap suggests US financial services dealmakers are more cautious about near-term conditions than their counterparts across the Atlantic - consistent with the pattern of large transactions moving forward while mid-market activity stalls.
BCG identifies artificial intelligence as playing an unusual dual role in the current M&A environment. AI is encouraging new investment and deal activity in parts of the market but also adding uncertainty around the durability of business models, revenue pools, and competitive positioning in others, making some assets harder to value and transact.
"AI is doing two things to this market at once," said Daniel Friedman, global leader of Transactions & Integrations at BCG and a coauthor of the report. "It's a reason to do more deals and a reason some deals are harder to close. The companies that get furthest ahead are likely to be the ones that have actually worked out which is true for the asset in front of them."
A sharp correction in software company valuations earlier in 2026, together with a pullback in private equity software deal activity, is an early sign of that dynamic.
BCG frames deal executability around five tests: asset readiness, market-clearing economics, resilient financing, organizational capacity, and regulatory clearance. Asset availability and economics are currently the most binding constraints on a broader recovery; financing and organizational capacity are less restricted at the market level, although they still shape individual deals.
Regulatory risk has not diminished, but it has shifted. Conventional antitrust enforcement may be less restrictive in parts of the market, but national-security screening, foreign-investment controls, and foreign-subsidy reviews increasingly influence deal terms, timing, and economics.
BCG also points to portfolio rotation as a potential catalyst for the next leg of activity. A greater number of divestitures, carve-outs, and private equity exits could increase the supply of prepared assets and free up capital for higher-priority businesses.
"Capital and strategic appetite are available," said Jens Kengelbach, global leader of Mergers & Acquisitions at BCG and a coauthor of the report. "The bottleneck has shifted to execution: finding transaction-ready assets, bridging valuation gaps, and clearing the operational and regulatory hurdles required to close."
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