Goldman Sachs advised on $298 billion worth of mergers and acquisitions across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa in the first six months of 2026, capturing 44% of the market and its largest share of the January-to-June period in nearly a decade. The broader number is more striking: total dealmaking in the region hit $676 billion, more than double the same stretch in 2025 and a 19-year high, according to data from financial markets firm LSEG.

That is not a blip. It is a signal that something structural has shifted.

Why so many big deals, and why now?

Last year, corporate dealmaking largely froze. The uncertainty around Donald Trump's return to the White House rattled markets, and executives put off major decisions while waiting to see how trade, regulation, and geopolitics would settle. They largely haven't settled. But companies have apparently decided that waiting is no longer the plan.

"Companies are taking a long-term strategic view and investing for where they want to be in the coming decades, not just the next few quarters," said Carsten Woehrn, Goldman's co-head of mergers and acquisitions in EMEA.

The other factor is looser regulation, which LSEG data cited directly as a backdrop to the surge. Regulatory approvals for large corporate combinations had become a serious obstacle in the United States and Europe over the prior few years. That friction has eased, removing one of the main reasons for executives to shelve deals.

The deals themselves are enormous

Goldman advised on 15 of the 20 largest deals in EMEA over the period. The biggest was a roughly $45 billion sale of Unilever's food business to spice company McCormick, a deal Goldman worked on alongside Morgan Stanley. Second was a $34 billion combination between elevator maker TK Elevator and its rival Kone.

To put those numbers in context: the Unilever deal alone represents more than the annual economic output of many mid-sized countries.

Goldman's closest rival, JPMorgan, advised on 13 of the top 20 deals and held 35% of the market, meaning Goldman's lead over JPMorgan narrowed slightly compared with the first half of 2025. Independent boutique firm Rothschild advised on more deals by count (163 versus Goldman's 111), but Goldman's dominance is built on size, not volume. Its share is the highest since 2018 globally, the bank holds 38% of the advisory market.

Not everything in Goldman's portfolio is clean. The bank is also advising Commerzbank, the German lender trying to resist a $28 billion takeover bid from Italian bank UniCredit. That deal is still contested, and Goldman's bankers acknowledge openly that league tables can shift sharply if deals in progress collapse before they close.

What this means beyond Wall Street

A surge in corporate mergers tends to work its way through ordinary life gradually and unevenly. When two large employers combine, job cuts often follow as the merged company eliminates overlap. When a $45 billion food business changes hands, the new owner's priorities around pricing, product lines, and supplier contracts eventually reach grocery shelves. When financial activity concentrates in a handful of dominant advisers, the fee structures and incentives of those advisers quietly shape which deals happen and which don't.

The deeper story here is about corporate confidence in a still-turbulent world. Companies aren't waiting for certainty because certainty isn't coming. They are making decade-scale bets now, under conditions that remain genuinely volatile. If global trade conditions worsen again or markets fall sharply in the second half of 2026, bankers themselves say the rankings could look very different by December.

For now, the money is moving.