M&A is up year to date. Will that last?
July 2, 2025 – Media MentionCorporate Partner Andrew Apfelberg shared his insights with CFO.com on how the current economic and political climate is impacting M&A activity.
Excerpts
Andrew Apfelberg, a partner at Los Angeles law firm Greenberg Glusker who works on business transactions, said that for many middle-market dealmakers, “everything stopped” after President Donald Trump announced an aggressive, worldwide tariff regime on April 2.
“All the deals stopped – good deals, bad deals, deals on the one-yard line and deals that were just kicking off,” he said. “Everything stopped because you just didn’t know how to underwrite the target company anymore.”
But when many of those April tariffs were scaled back in May, M&A activity resumed. “Not every deal survived,” Apfelberg noted, “but most of them did.” As a result, Apfelberg said he’s uncertain about the notion of a huge uptick in deals for the rest of the year.
Still, he conceded that, for better or worse, some sellers might see reason to act with more urgency going forward. “In the middle market, at least, sellers are now perhaps a little bit more motivated than before, partly because of fear of what could be around the corner,” he said. “They might be thinking, ‘If I don’t sell now, I may need to hold on for another few years.’”
