1、M&A Outlook 2026A story of resilience and strategic recoveryMarch 2026 Ideals,ALL RIGHTS RESERVEDM&A Outlook 2026ContentsPage 3Executive summaryJump to chapterPage 8Tech gets stuck in the slow laneJump to chapter Ideals,ALL RIGHTS RESERVEDMarch 2026Page 4A market that defied headwindsPage 5A tale of
2、 two halvesPage 6The US pulls ahead on deal timelinesPage 7Deal speeds vary regionallyJump to chapterJump to chapterJump to chapterJump to chapterPage 9Not all tech moves at the same speedPage 10Real estate races aheadPage 11The long-term reality:Slower by designPage 12Will AI finally accelerate dea
3、l timelines in 2026?Jump to chapterJump to chapterJump to chapterJump to chapterM&A Outlook 2026Executive summaryDealmaking surged in the second half of 2025 after tariffs had upended early optimism.Ideals,ALL RIGHTS RESERVEDMarch 20262025 wasnt the straight-line recovery many had hoped for in globa
4、l M&A.Instead,it was a year split cleanly in two.An analysis of M&A projects opened and managed through the Ideals Virtual Data Room reveals that although deal timelines remained broadly flat overall,the underlying market dynamics shifted significantly.Tariffs,regulatory friction and geopolitical un
5、certainty interrupted early-year momentum,forcing many deals to pause or slow.But by the second half of the year,dealmaking regained its footing,led by large,strategic transactions in technology,infrastructure and energy-adjacent assets.This follows tentative improvement in 2024,when average deal du
6、ration fell 4%after several years of delays,and shows progress is rarely linear.Our 2025 data reflects a market adjusting to new uncertainties while continuing to pursue strategic opportunities.“The first half of the year was about caution,”says Deven Monga,VP of Sales at Ideals.“Then,once the uncer