Odd Lots · Saturday, September 19, 2026
Gene Sykes reported that the M&A market is experiencing its biggest year on record, surpassing the peak of 2021. This surge is largely attributed to the impact of technology, particularly AI, which is driving demand across various industries, including semiconductors.
“Well, on the one hand, this is the biggest M & A year in the history of the world. Biggest year by far. We expect the M & A market to be much bigger than it was at the peak. The last peak was 2021, inflated by COVID.”
“And it's deep. And for the past several years, 40% of the M & A market has been selling companies that were owned by private equity sponsors. This year, that's 30%. And the reason is there's so much more substantive demand with things that are happening around the technology impact of the economy in every possible way.”
“And you think about it, every industry, natural resources or power generation, they're experiencing the same thing, again, because they're building the infrastructure for AI. We've seen an enormous boom in semiconductor technology, semiconductor equities and semiconductor M & A when everybody wants to have proprietary semiconductor technology.”