Family-run, seed stage, and high-growth companies are getting ready for what they expect to be a supercharged year as a four-year backlog of impending M&A deals, caused in part by regulatory hurdles, begins to clear. According to JPMorgan Chase research published today, 43% of midsize-business leaders expect to engage in some kind of strategic partnership or acquisition.
The new survey, which polled more than 1,600 executives who control businesses with annual revenues between $20 million and $500 million, also found that confidence in the national economy jumped 12% since last year to 55% among small-business owners and more than doubled from 31% to 65% among midsize-business executives.
The survey coincides with multiple M&A promotions and hirings at JPMorgan and other banks, and what Reuters reports could be more than $4 trillion in M&A activity after President-elect Donald Trump takes over later this month.
“Clients’ expectations of banks being able to deliver capabilities around working capital management will be a differentiator,” Brian Lamb, JPMorgan Chase’s managing director for middle-market banking, told Fortune. “What that means to a bank is we need to then be prepared to show up with the right capabilities to support that growth.”
To help meet those demands, JPMorgan hired two new heads of its mid-market M&A in September. The following month, Deutsche Bank hired a new head of North American M&A.
Despite the fact that much of the M&A opportunity results from an expected laissez-faire approach from the incoming Trump administration, Lamb says banks looking to prepare for the M&A flood need to be ready to service clients across the U.S. border. In addition to cross-border payments, banks must have automated reporting capabilities to meet international standards.
Goldman Sachs last month reported that flows between the United States and Europe have seen the strongest momentum—accounting for $267 billion—or 44% of global activity. “As global M&A momentum continues accelerating next year,” the authors wrote, “we expect cross-regional dealmaking to continue growing in both depth and breadth.”
Risks highlighted by JPMorgan include uncertainty around shifts in global trading patterns, potential tariff impacts, and geopolitical tensions.
Beyond M&A investments, 51% of JPMorgan’s midsize-business respondents plan to add headcount, an increase of 7% over last year. Sixty-four percent plan to invest more to support sales by adding products, spending more on ads, and increasing social media campaigns, according to the report.
“You better hope,” says Lamb, who covers businesses ranging from $20 million in revenue to $2 billion in revenue, “to have been making those investments so that you are now very well positioned in 2025 to respond to what your clients are going to be asking you to do.”
