Professor Afsharipour Discusses M&A on 'Marketplace'

Professor Afra Afsharipour appeared on the Nov. 7 episode of the public radio program Marketplace in a report on mergers and acquisitions as an economic indicator.

This year is on track to be one of the slowest for M&A activity in the past decade, Marketplace reporter Justin Ho noted, citing data from the research company Dealogic. But companies are laying the groundwork for deals, Afsharipour said, with future M&A activity most likely to happen in fast-growing sectors like tech.

“One of the things buyers are thinking about is evaluating how [artificial intelligence] will impact their business models and looking into potential purchases of companies that are much more focused on AI,” Afsharipour said.

Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law Afra Afsharipour’s areas of research include corporate law and governance, mergers and acquisitions, transactional law, and the legal profession. From 2018-2024, she served as Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. Her scholarship has appeared in the Columbia Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review, and UC Davis Law Review, among other leading publications.