US M&A spending jumps 50% in March as deal volume declines

Near 6% drop in number of deals happening

The amount of M&A activity fell by 5.9% in March but there was a significant jump in the amount of money spent on the deals.

Aggregate spending was up 49.9% from February, according to data from FactSet, which was spread across 892 deals, a decrease from 948 the previous month. Credit: FactSet The largest overall deal was Elon Musk's artificial intelligence firm xAI acquiring his social media company X for $33bn. This would allow co-investors in X to benefit from the value of the AI firm. In terms of M&A deal activity, just five out of the 21 sectors tracked by FactSet saw an increase over the past three months relative to the same period in 2024: Technology Services recorded 747 deals versus 648 in the p...