2026 Middle-Market Cross-Border M&A Q2 Report

Global M&A reached a record $1.25T in Q2 2026. But that growth didn’t come from more deals. It came from bigger ones.

Megadeals accounted for 75% of first-half 2026 deal value, up from 67% a year earlier, while overall deal count fell 13%. The headline figure reflected concentration at the top of the market, not a genuine recovery in dealmaking activity.

APAC’s middle market told a different story, and a stronger one. Cross-border deal value rose 55% to $25.7B, outpacing the global recovery by a wide margin, while the rest of the world’s mid-market cross-border activity grew a comparatively modest 19% and remained below late-2025 levels.

One signal stood out above the rest. TMT’s share of APAC deal count nearly doubled in a single quarter, from 18.2% to 31.8%. With Industrials holding steady at 18.5%, these two sectors now drive 57% of all regional activity, as AI adoption outpaces the infrastructure required to support it. Buyers are closing that gap through acquisition rather than organic build.

The same underlying pattern extended across every sector this quarter:

• Consumer capital rotated toward conviction over consensus, even as regional sentiment remained cautious

• Foreign capital moved decisively into India’s insurance market and green infrastructure financing

• Healthcare capability gaps and capped domestic growth pushed APAC pharma to acquire abroad

• A rare-earth export deadline split capital in two directions across critical minerals

Public markets rebounded throughout the quarter. Private markets did not. Credit defaults reached 6.0%, the highest level since 2024, while private equity exit activity remained subdued.

This was not a quarter defined by freely flowing capital. It was a quarter in which conviction carried a price, and only the most differentiated assets commanded it.

Our Q2 2026 APAC Middle-Market Cross-Border M&A Report breaks down where that conviction was directed, sector by sector.

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