Global mergers and acquisitions totalled about $993 billion in the third quarter of 2026, down 41% from the previous quarter, according to LSEG data reported by Reuters. It was the first quarter below $1 trillion since the second quarter of 2025.

Among the 10 transactions above $10 billion announced in the quarter — the lowest quarterly count of megadeals since the fourth quarter of 2024 — Reuters cites Banca Monte dei Paschi’s roughly $32 billion bid for Banco BPM and Gold Fields’ about $25.7 billion bid for Northern Star Resources.

Year to date, worldwide M&A stands at $3.9 trillion, 28% above the same period and the highest level for that interval since 2001. The number of deals nevertheless fell 8%, a volume last seen around 2020. Announced value is not the same as every deal closing. The figures may be revised by the data provider.

Reuters links the cooling to higher borrowing costs. The report notes that expensive energy has fanned inflation and pushed expectations higher about where interest rates will settle. The benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield hit 5.34% on Thursday, its highest since 2002, after the biggest quarterly rise this century in the three months to September.

John Collins, global head of M&A at Morgan Stanley, said higher yields make valuations “sometimes a little tougher,” but that the impact is hard to quantify and he is not ready to call a slowdown based on what he is seeing. Carsten Woehrn, Goldman Sachs’ co-head of M&A in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, still spoke of boards feeling urgency to complete strategic deals.

While US and European dealmaking fell sharply in the last three months, Asia-Pacific M&A totalled $242 billion, up 8% from the second quarter and 36% from the same period last year, according to the same report. Sarah Jones of Clifford Chance described the third quarter as a “normalisation” after an extraordinary second quarter, rather than the end of a cycle.

This article is not investment advice and does not forecast the next quarter. The quarterly drop coexists with a year still above 2025 on a cumulative-value basis; the two readings — quarter versus year — are not interchangeable.

Image: Hundsgemeini, New York Stock Exchange, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons; archive photograph, not a 2026 deal signing.

Source consulted: Global M&A deal rush fades in third quarter as rising borrowing costs bite — Reuters.