Latham & Watkins M&A Leaders on the 'Year of the Mega Deal'

Latham & Watkins beat out its rival Kirkland & Ellis in our annual League Tables ranking of M&A activity for 2025. And on this episode of our podcast, On The Merits, the firm's M&A co-chairs talk about what went down in what one called "the year of the mega deal."

Alex Kelly and Paul Kukish spoke with Bloomberg Law reporter Mahira Dayal about why Latham was able to work on almost 800 deals in 2025 totaling more than $780 billion in value. Kukish said AI and AI-adjacent deals were a big part of the firm's success—success that smaller firms just now getting into the AI space may not be able to replicate.

They also talked about how they think tariffs and other Trump administration policies affected the market this year for buying and selling companies. "There has been an increased focus by our clients on how the president views a particular industry, or a particular company, or a particular country," Kelly said.

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