Global Dealmaking at 20-Year Low as Uncertainty Abounds
June 25, 2025 – Media MentionCorporate Partner Andrew Apfelberg offered his insights to The Wall Street Journal on the downturn in merger and acquisition activity, which has been attributed to economic uncertainty driven by tariffs, elevated interest rates, market volatility, and ambiguity surrounding the Trump administration's policies.
Excerpts
This year’s flurry of tariffs have made it harder for dealmakers to accurately gauge a company’s worth, Greenberg Glusker attorney Andrew Apfelberg said. The mix of new levies, along with their impact on costs and the question of whether they remain in place long-term, have made it difficult to rely on previous financial results or forward-looking projections, he said.
“One day we have tariffs, the next day we don’t,” Apfelberg said. “Private equity funds, lenders, attorneys, accountants, pick whoever — you didn’t know how to evaluate a target company anymore.”
Those lofty aspirations are actually part of why dealmaking activity is down, according to Apfelberg. They have misaligned the expectations of sellers and buyers. Sellers came into the market expecting an M&A boom that would give their businesses boom-worthy valuations, while buyers have been hesitant to finance a premium valuation while interest rates remain high.
“It’s really hard for a seller to say, ‘I’m going to exit my company, which I feel some sense of emotional and logical control over, and put my fate in the hands of the market, which is up one day and down the next,’” Apfelberg said. “Emotion is much more at play — emotion is driving a lot of this, it’s not logic.”
