The 2025 Merger and Acquisition Finance Conference was held in Shanghai on Dec 8, where the China Merger and Acquisition Composite Index (2025) was released.

The index offers a comprehensive barometer for the M&A market by integrating capital market data from property rights exchanges. It tracks five dimensions: activity level, scale, efficiency, environment, and effectiveness.

Using the first quarter of 2022 as its base period at 100 points, the index climbed to 125.9 points in the third quarter of 2025, marking a year-on-year increase of 35.5 percent.

The Yangtze River Delta region outperformed the national index, with its sub-index rising 42.4 percent year-on-year. Shanghai led all regions with a 77.2 percent surge.

From the fourth quarter of 2024 to the third quarter of 2025, the YRD region accounted for 45 percent of M&A deals by volume and 60 percent by value.

Shanghai's progress has been propelled by the city's three-year action plan supporting the merger and acquisition of listed companies, which has driven development in sectors such as integrated circuits, biomedicine, and artificial intelligence, according to Gu Jun, the director of Shanghai Municipal Development and Reform Commission.

Financial institutions have also strengthened support. Shanghai Pudong Development Bank has issued over 100 billion yuan ($14.2 billion) in M&A loans this year, with its outstanding balance exceeding 240 billion yuan.

The bank's chairman, Zhang Weizhong, emphasized that M&A is a critical driver of corporate transformation, with industrial and strategic synergy serving as major motivations.

The conference also marked the establishment of the Merger and Acquisition Alliance, which is designed to provide integrated life-cycle services for M&A deals.

Shanghai issued a three-year action plan (2025-2017) on supporting the M&A sector in December last year, aiming to build the city into a national hub for M&A activity and to drive broader development across the YRD region and beyond.

Source: Shanghai Observer