Stock investors may look back at 2025 as the year of the takeover — one that delivered sizeable gains. “It’s going to be a big year,” Calamos Investments senior portfolio manager Brandon Nelson predicts. “A lot of stars are aligning for mergers and acquisitions.”
Nelson cites three favorable factors behind the M&A boom, including:
1. New leadership at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC): More merger-friendly Andrew Ferguson has replaced the Biden administration’s Lina Kahn, who aggressively challenged takeovers.
“With the new [Trump] administration, and specifically the FTC change, conditions can only get less hostile,” Nelson said. “There is a lot of pent-up demand.”
That demand is already showing up. Nelson points to proposed takeovers in the past few weeks of Intra-Cellular Therapies ITCI, Inari Medical NARI, Accolade ACCD and H&E Equipment Services HEES. Those takeover announcements produced instant 50% to 100% shareholder gains. This is just the beginning, Nelson says.
2. ‘Animal spirits’ are on the rise: Corporate management teams are hungrier for acquisitions, Harbor Capital Advisors portfolio manager Justin Menne says. Menne points out that business confidence is rising because of ongoing economic strength and prospects for deregulation under the Trump administration. He says the increase in investment-banking fees revealed in recent earnings news from JPMorgan Chase JPM, Goldman Sachs GS and Morgan Stanley MS is a sign that dealmaking is already picking up.
3. Credit conditions are easing: It’s getting easier for companies to borrow to do deals, says Andy Wells, chief investment officer of investment manager SanJac Alpha. Wells points to a Fed measure of supply and demand for commercial and industrial loans, which shows the net percentage of lenders tightening loan standards at zero.
Here are five companies that may get bought out. The key here is that investors say these names should do well even without takeover bids. That’s important, because betting on takeover action alone is highly speculative.
