So far, 2025 has not been a banner year for mergers and acquisitions. At least, when it comes to how many of them are happening.

The number of M&A deals that happened during the first three quarters of 2025 is the lowest in more than a decade, according to the research company Dealogic. But things look very different when it comes to the value of deals inked so far. That number is the second-highest in the last 10 years.

There’s still quite a bit of hunger for M&A deals — as long as they’re big ones.

Smaller companies buy or merge with one another to sell more kinds of products. Sometimes they do it to expand geographically or to lower costs. Big M&A deals are different.

“Here, we’re talking about companies that are already very situated with respect to market presence,” said Drew Pascarella, a professor of finance at Cornell University. “You’re sort of solidifying a leadership position, as opposed to a small company using M&A to enter a new market for the first time.”

We’re talking about deals with values higher than $10 billion. Pascarella said they are typically less risky than smaller deals, because big companies tend to be more stable when the economy goes south.

“They’re not a single-product company, or a single geography company, that could be wiped out. And therefore, even in a volatile market that we continue to be in, they might feel a little bit more comfortable doing an M&A deal, versus, say, a smaller company,” he said.

Getting even bigger can help companies insulate themselves from economic turmoil.

Emilie Feldman, a professor of management at the Wharton School, said big M&A deals can give companies more control over scarce resources.

“Is it people, is it their brains, is it copper, like a natural resource, is it one of the four remaining railroad companies in the United States?” she said.

If a company can control more of its own supply chains, they’re “less subject to, for example, what might be happening with suppliers or customers who might be impacted by some of the uncertainties that we’ve been talking about,” Feldman said.

Big M&A deals still have to pass muster with regulators.

Afra Afsharipour, a law professor at the University of California, Davis, said megadeals often involve regulatory scrutiny across several countries.

“These large megadeals are more subject to that, right? Because those companies hit multiple jurisdictions,” she said.

But big companies can afford the teams of lawyers other advisors it takes to jump through regulatory hoops all over the world, Afsharipour said.

“That’s why that scale and large complexity of the company, might actually favor the very large strategic buyers that want to do megadeals. Because they’re also much more sophisticated in being able to manage regulatory complexity outside of one jurisdiction,” she said.

Afsharipour said this year’s big mergers and acquisitions will have consequences for the smaller companies that aren’t doing deals.

“If you’re a midsize business in a particular sector, and then your largest competitors are 10, 15 times larger than you, your ability to compete is going to be really tough,” she said.

And big corporate deals, she added, are likely to keep happening.