Professor Afsharipour Talks to 'Marketplace' About First-Quarter M&A Slowdown

Professor Afra Afsharipour appeared on the public radio program Marketplace on April 2 to discuss the scant numbers of mergers and acquisitions in the first quarter of 2025.

Although dealmakers had hoped M&A would rebound this year, the first quarter was the slowest in more than a decade, according to research company Dealogic. Uncertainty about tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump likely is a factor, Marketplace noted.

“If I’m going to buy a company, and I suddenly see that it’s selling products in jurisdictions that are going to impose tariffs on those products, then the value of that company is going to come down,” Afsharipour told Marketplace.

Companies interested in M&A deals also face an unclear regulatory situation in the United States, Afsharipour pointed out.

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.