The next cycle

The London M&A Forum convened at a moment when global dealmaking is reopening, but into conditions that bear little resemblance to the previous cycle. What emerged was not a forecast for the market, but a framework for the next cycle: one in which judgment, rather than process mastery alone, has become the defining capability in modern M&A.

Complexity and uncertainty are no longer temporary disruptions to be managed around. They are the defining conditions in which deals are now conceived, assessed and executed.

Three principles crystallised across the discussions:

Judgment begins earlier. Whether in merger control, activism defence, exit readiness or board decision-making, the critical choices that determine outcomes are made well upstream of traditional decision points. Deals that assume complexity can be managed late in the process are increasingly exposed.

Credibility is the currency. From “does this deal have a government license?” to “can we evidence our strategic case under regulatory scrutiny?” to “will our shareholder base believe us when pressure arrives?”, transactions succeed or fail based on whether they command belief. Credibility is built through governance, proof and alignment – and it evaporates quickly when inconsistencies surface.

Restraint is a strategic choice. The most effective boards are not those that pursue every opportunity. They are those that define clearly what they are prepared – and crucially, not prepared – to do.

The 2026 M&A cycle will not be defined by those who wait for clarity to return. It will be defined by those who build judgment infrastructure now.

As Frank Partnoy suggested during the Forum, one response to this environment is the discipline of the pre-mortem: imagining failure early enough to expose the assumptions, dependencies and fragilities a deal may not survive. In a market where uncertainty cannot be eliminated, that kind of structured anticipation becomes a source of advantage.

What follows from the London M&A Forum is not a prediction, but a message about discipline. In a market defined by structural complexity, the deals that succeed are not those that rely on mastering process alone. They are those designed from the outset to withstand judgment – by regulators, shareholders, boards, markets and governments – across the full lifecycle of the transaction.

The new discipline of dealmaking is this: recognising early where the old rulebook no longer applies, and acting with conviction in response. We look forward to picking up this conversation at next year’s London M&A Forum, as the next cycle takes shape.