(Bloomberg) -- Dealmakers gathered at an annual conference in New Orleans this week to catch their breath and try to look for reasons to be optimistic about a mergers and acquisitions market that has disappointed so far in 2025.
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“People want to do deals,” Audra Cohen, co-managing partner at law firm Sullivan & Cromwell’s general practice group, said during a presentation Thursday at Tulane University’s Corporate Law Institute event. She was speaking against a backdrop of falling deal values, with activity in part impacted by US President’s Donald Trump’s policies on the economy and foreign affairs.
“Things like the tariffs give people a little bit of pause because they’re having to look at their business, at the supply chain and trying to figure out what that means,” Cohen said. “Until a little bit of this settles, it’s going to be challenging to get deals done particularly at valuations that people would expect.”
Every year around this time, Wall Street’s clubby network of M&A lawyers, bankers and public relations professionals heads to Louisiana to talk shop at Tulane. Many dealmakers began 2025 expecting a banner year under Trump. But they’ve instead crashed into the harsh reality of trade wars and geopolitical clashes.
“There’s a lack of predictability right now,” said Scott Barshay, chair of the corporate department at Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison. “Our clients are kind of waiting and seeing right now to see how things sort out. There’s a lot of interest in doing things.”
Barshay said that the head of a company that was seeking to pursue a big transaction recently told him that the company plans to “wait a little while,” as it didn’t want to strike a deal only to see the market crater the next day. Barshay said he still expected the year to end on a positive note.
“There’s just a little bit of a pause but I don’t think it’s a lot of pause,” he said. “I think we’re going to see over the next few weeks announcements of some bigger deals coming out.”
‘Wreaks Havoc’
Global deal values are down about 16% in 2025 to roughly $485 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Jennifer Muller, co-head of Houlihan Lokey Inc.’s special committee advisory and fairness and solvency opinions practices, said it will be hard for values to hit the $3.5 trillion that many had expected this year. This week’s movement in the VIX Index, a closely watched measure of stock market volatility, is a worry, she said.