Wall Street Races for Megadeals as Countdown Begins on Trump Era

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump's return to the White House changed the political calculus around mergers and acquisitions, reviving companies' desire for dream deals that had become difficult to pull off. Now, corporate America is on the clock.

The rout by the Democrats in the midterms is creating a sudden sense of urgency in boardrooms, with executives wondering if they might have one last chance to pull off a transformational transaction while M&A-friendly regulators remain in place under Trump.

Conversations with top advisers suggest the result is already prompting companies to ask whether they should move fast to bring big strategic moves forward. There's a realization that a resurgent Democratic Party could work to frustrate the kind of blockbuster dealmaking that's built up steam during Trump 2.0. and powered record revenue on Wall Street.

Kevin Foley, co-head of investment banking at JPMorgan Chase & Co., one of the world's top advisory firms, said companies should be ready to transact through another complicated operating environment.

"The biggest risk may be assuming that, sooner or later, things go back to normal," New York-based Foley said. "Standing still is always an option, but when industries are changing this fast, it's the wrong one."

Fernando Rivas, a senior Wells Fargo & Co. banker, put it more starkly at an industry conference in Boston on Thursday when he said a "now or never" mentality will return to drive M&A in the near term.

Trump's two terms have accounted for an outsized share of the biggest deals. More than half of all announced transactions worth at least $50 billion and involving a US company over the past two decades have come while he was president, according to analysis of Bloomberg-compiled data.

This year alone has seen landmark combinations in mission-critical sectors like power and technology, such as this month's record-breaking $100 billion-plus takeover of laser maker Lumentum Holdings Inc. by Marvell Technology Inc. Elsewhere, the Department of Justice cleared Paramount Skydance Corp.'s $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. without antitrust remedies.

There's a particular urgency to get going with these more complex transactions. Megadeals can take months to negotiate and even longer to clear regulatory reviews around the world. Companies that wait until a 2028 presidential campaign is in full swing to move ahead with such deals risk seeing them become political footballs at the stump.