When America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. When it comes to mergers and acquisitions amid Trump’s tariffs, however, it could be more like Covid. 

When Covid hit, we didn’t know how transactions would be affected. Uncertainty prevailed. Today, the same is true. We’re not locked in our houses, but there are similarities.

Then, as now, stock markets fell in recognition of the likely impact on growth and profits. Transactions – at least in the short term – slumped. Office of National Statistics figures showed domestic and cross-border M&A fell from 183 deals in March 2020 to just 42 that May.

A case in point was when lockdown was put in place, we were ready to go to market with a client selling their business. Lots of people wanted to read the information memorandum, but moving beyond that was hard.