What did BCG's 2026 M&A report find?
That the value of deals and the mood around them point in different directions. BCG's M&A Report 2026, published 21 September 2026, has global deal value up 15 percent in the first eight months of the year, and its own sentiment index at 83 against a long-term average of 100.
The value figure is the stronger of the two by some distance. BCG puts aggregate deal value for 1 January to 31 August at 11 percent above its ten-year average. The count of megadeals, which it defines as transactions of $10 billion or more, reached 37, up from 24 in the same period of 2025 and past the previous record of 32, set in 2021.
Below that size the picture changes. BCG reports that deals of $1 billion to $10 billion are running above their longer-term average by deal volume, while deals of $250 million to $1 billion, and more so those under $250 million, remain below theirs. It adds that the volume figures are not adjusted for inflation, which makes the shortfall among smaller deals larger than it looks. The report text gives no percentage for any of the bands.
A companion article on this site made the point about size in August from a different data set. What BCG adds is a second instrument. Its M&A Sentiment Index combines business confidence, valuation levels and interest rates with a generative AI analysis of corporate communications, and BCG describes it as a measure of the near-term deal outlook. It rose from 79 at the start of the year to 83. That is an improvement, and it leaves the index 17 points short of its own average.
Where do deal value and sentiment disagree by sector?
Most sharply in technology and consumer. BCG has technology, media and telecommunications deal value up 11 percent on the year and the largest of any sector, with technology sentiment at 52, the lowest reading it reports. Consumer goods deal value rose 20 percent against a consumer reading of 64.
Two sectors agree with themselves. Health care posted the largest rise in value, 74 percent, and a reading of 100, which is the long-term average. Industrials was the only sector in which deal value fell, by 20 percent against a period last year that BCG calls one of the sector's stronger ones, and its reading is 66.
Financial institutions carry the highest reading at 108, with deal value for financial institutions and real estate up 12 percent. Energy and utilities read 96, with energy deal value up 16 percent. Materials rose 44 percent in value, a rebound from a decline the year before, and BCG gives no sentiment reading for it.
BCG's own account of the gap is that large transactions carry the value totals. It attributes the technology, media and telecommunications figure to large deals in media and telecommunications, and the health care rise to a number of larger transactions. It reads the technology score as a market in which software business models exposed to disruption from AI are under scrutiny, even as companies built around AI attract strong demand.
| Sector, as BCG labels it for the sentiment reading | Deal value, change on the first eight months of 2025 | Sentiment index (long-term average 100) |
|---|---|---|
| Financial institutions (value figure: financial institutions and real estate) | +12% | 108 |
| Health care | +74% | 100 |
| Energy and utilities (value figure: energy) | +16% | 96 |
| Industrials | -20% | 66 |
| Consumer (value figure: consumer goods) | +20% | 64 |
| Technology (value figure: technology, media and telecommunications) | +11% | 52 |
| Materials | +44% | not stated |
| All sectors | +15% | 83 |
Why is sentiment below average when capital is available?
Because, on BCG's reading, the shortage is of companies a buyer can underwrite, not of money or appetite. The report says capital remains available and financing conditions are workable despite rising interest rates, and that the binding constraint is likely supply: not merely the number of assets, but their readiness.
It is specific about what is missing. Too few assets, it says, are coming to market with the combination of price, quality, readiness and visibility that lets a buyer underwrite a deal with conviction. In some cases the valuation gap is too wide. In others the asset is not sufficiently prepared, its quality is in question, or its outlook is too uncertain.
BCG describes a market dividing on the strength of the case as well as on size. Buyers compete aggressively where they can underwrite growth, competitive advantage, cash generation and a credible path to value creation. Businesses with uncertain models, ambitious price expectations or a case resting on too many assumptions struggle to draw competing bids. Where conviction is absent, it writes, even well-capitalized buyers may prefer to wait.
“A record year for deal value tells an owner how the largest companies fared. The sentiment reading is closer to the room a mid-sized company walks into. When buyers are selective, the company that arrives with numbers that reconcile and a price it can defend gets the attention a better market would have spread around.”
What does a low sentiment reading mean for an owner in that sector?
It means fewer buyers will take the company's story on trust, not that there are no buyers. A sector reading is an average across every company in the sector, and BCG's own account is that capital is flowing toward transactions where a buyer can get comfortable with both the downside and the upside.
So the reading is best used as a guide to how much proof a process will be asked for. In a sector at 52 or 64, an owner should expect more diligence on how durable the revenue is, more questions about what the business looks like in three years, and less willingness to pay today for growth that has not yet shown up. That is our reading of what a sentiment figure implies, not a statement in the report.
The reading also says something about who the likeliest buyer is. BCG observes that in a selective market a corporate acquirer able to count on gains specific to its own business can have room on price that a financial buyer, working from the standalone case, does not. It is careful to add that this is not universal. For an owner in a low-sentiment sector it is a reason to build the list of corporate buyers with as much care as the list of sponsors.
There is competition for those buyers' attention. BCG cites PitchBook's count of more than 33,500 unsold portfolio companies held by private equity firms as of 30 June 2026, up from about 32,500 at the end of 2025, and says sponsors are under mounting pressure to exit them. A founder-owned company coming to market will be read alongside sponsor-owned companies prepared for sale by people who do it for a living.
One caution on reading across sources. A companion article on this site reports buyout capital rotating toward hard industries in the first half of the year, which sits awkwardly beside a fall in industrials deal value and a reading of 66. The two are not measuring the same thing. One is the sector mix of leveraged buyouts, the other is all announced majority transactions over a different period, and providers draw sector lines differently. Neither cancels the other.
Which of BCG's five gates can an owner do something about?
The first two, which BCG also names as the ones holding the market back. It sets out five gates a transaction must pass: asset availability and readiness, economics and market clearing, financial resilience, organizational capacity and regulatory clearance. It calls the first two the most important constraints on a broader recovery.
Readiness is the gate most fully in an owner's hands. BCG's description is a seller that has gathered reliable financial and operational data, established a clear perimeter for what is being sold, and completed the preparations for separation or exit. In a founder-owned company that means accounts a buyer's accountants can reconcile, contracts that can be found and read, and a business separated on paper from the owner's other interests. Companion articles on this site cover the data room and a seller's own quality of earnings work.
The economics gate is partly in an owner's hands. Price expectations are, and so is structure. BCG notes that earnouts and rollover equity are the structures that bridge a valuation gap, and that minority stakes and staged acquisitions suit a buyer not ready to take full ownership. It also warns that such structures add governance and operational complexity. Companion articles on earnouts and on rollover equity set out what each costs a seller.
The remaining three gates belong mostly to the buyer, and BCG judges financing and organizational capacity to be the less constraining at present. They are worth a question all the same. Ask a bidder how the purchase is funded and what else its deal team is working on. A buyer with the money and no spare attention closes slowly.
A note on dates. BCG's figures run to 31 August 2026 and its report was published on 21 September. They do not describe the third quarter as a whole, for which full figures had not been published when this was written.
As of September 2026
Sources: Boston Consulting Group, "In Search of a Wider Recovery: The 2026 M&A Report", by Jens Kengelbach, Daniel Friedman, Dominik Degen and Christoph Schweizer, published 21 September 2026, and BCG's press release of the same date, "Global M&A Value Rises as Megadeals Return, but the Recovery Remains Narrow", both read first-hand, for: aggregate global M&A deal value up 15 percent in the first eight months of 2026 from the same period of 2025 and 11 percent above the ten-year average; 37 megadeals (transactions of $10 billion or more) against 24 a year earlier and a previous record of 32 in 2021; deals of $1 billion to less than $10 billion above their longer-term average by deal volume, and deals of $250 million to less than $1 billion and under $250 million below theirs, not adjusted for inflation; the BCG M&A Sentiment Index at 83, up from 79 at the start of the year, against a long-term average of 100, its construction, and the sector readings of 108, 100, 96, 66, 64 and 52; sector deal value changes of plus 74 percent for health care, plus 44 percent for materials, plus 20 percent for consumer goods, plus 16 percent for energy, plus 12 percent for financial institutions and real estate, plus 11 percent for technology, media and telecommunications and minus 20 percent for industrials; the five gates and BCG's view of which are most constraining; and its remarks on asset readiness, conviction, corporate acquirers and alternative deal structures. BCG states that its analysis draws primarily on LSEG data and that year-to-date figures cover 1 January to 31 August. The count of more than 33,500 unsold private equity portfolio companies as of 30 June 2026, against about 32,500 at the end of 2025, is PitchBook's as cited by BCG and was not read at source. The 17-point gap between 83 and 100 is our arithmetic. The companion articles cited for deal value by size, for the sector mix of leveraged buyouts, and for the data room, a seller's quality of earnings, earnouts and rollover equity carry their own sources. The reading of what a sector's sentiment score means for a sale process, the translation of readiness into a founder-owned company's terms, and the questions to put to a bidder are ours.
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This position sits within our sell-side M&A advisory practice.