CICC's Sun Lei: M&A Scale Expected to Approach Decade High in 2025

"The significant increase in M&A market activity owes much to policy support, with the marketization degree and regulatory tolerance for M&A restructuring greatly improved compared to before."

Recently, Sun Lei, head of the Investment Banking Department at China International Capital Corporation (CICC), stated in an exclusive interview that in the year since the implementation of the "Six M&A Guidelines," industrial mergers and acquisitions have become mainstream. M&A cases in strategic emerging industries such as semiconductors have significantly increased, while innovative solutions continue to emerge, substantially enhancing transaction flexibility.

Sun Lei believes that M&A restructuring has become an important means for China to adjust its economic structure, promote growth, and enhance quality in the next stage. Looking ahead, he remains firmly optimistic about the next phase of development in China's M&A market. However, he also pointed out that the domestic M&A ecosystem requires further improvement, necessitating collaborative efforts from the government, enterprises, financial institutions, intermediaries, and other stakeholders to better build an ecological closed loop.

Based on calculations from the total announced transaction scale data in the current M&A market, Sun Lei estimates that the full-year transaction scale for 2025 is expected to approach the historical high of the past decade.