Tasked with navigating steady economic headwinds, including uncertainty surrounding interest rates and the impact from tariffs, today’s CFOs might be wary of pursuing mergers and acquisitions.
That’s why it’s important for CFOs to approach such decisions with a strategic eye: whether on the buy or the sell side, CFOs mulling M&A decisions should “be opportunistic in your approach,” according to Bill Haemmerle, partner in the transaction advisory service practice at accounting and advisory firm Wiss.
For CFOs, it’s important to “give yourself the grace to maybe make an investment and lose a little money in the short term, knowing that from a long-term perspective, it's the best thing for the company,” Haemmerle said in an interview.
Finding the M&A sweet spot
Taking an “opportunistic” approach to M&A may go against the grain for risk-adverse CFOs — but it can also lead to growth. In general, CFOs today need to be “a lot more strategic in your view, and how you're approaching advising the CEO, working with your chief operating officer and understanding what's important for the business,” Haemmerle said.
When it comes to M&A, that strategic lens is all the more critical: “I think from a CFO’s perspective, if you're just focused on the profit and loss in the short term, I don't think you're doing your job,” Haemmerle said.
Yet it’s also crucial to ensure CFOs don’t swing too widely in the other direction — finance chiefs that are too cautious might also miss out on key opportunities to grow the business or meet their goals, he said.
“Even though there's uncertainty, if there's an opportunity that makes a lot of sense from a strategic perspective, then regardless of what's happening in the overall market, you should make the move,” Haemmerle said of how leaders should be thinking about M&A decisions in the current environment.
Haemmerle has served in his current role at the New York-based accounting firm, which focuses on middle-market businesses, since September 2020, according to his LinkedIn profile. His past roles include serving as managing director for Laud Collier Capital and head of capital markets and business development for The Credit Junction.
Wiss is seeing more activity related to companies conducting acquisitions in the transaction advisory service, Haemmerle said, a trend which bodes well for the M&A sector during the second half of the year. Although some murkiness remains surrounding interest rates, for example, “for the most part, what we're seeing is an uptick in overall activity across all sectors,” he said.
Finding solid regulatory ground
Many in the M&A space are expecting the second half of the year will be brighter in terms of M&A deals, coming after a period of regulatory uncertainty led to tepid growth for the first half of 2025.
Deals from January through May 2025 numbered 4,535, compared to 4,515 for the prior year period, according to a recent study by PricewaterhouseCoopers cited by CFO Dive. After passage by Congerss of a large tax and spending bill this month, the greater clarity in taxation may prompt an upswing in M&A, CFO Dive previously reported.
The legislation has provided key context around certain regulatory factors, Haemmerle said. Among other changes, it permanently reinstates a 100% bonus depreciation for qualified assets acquired after Jan. 1, 2025, and provides more clarity on how to address compensation in a merger or acquisition. With “more certainty coming into the market, we're seeing activity pick up,” he said.
However, while the legislation has created more stability, the long-term impact of the legislation as well as the direction of interest rates remains uncertain, he said.
For many executives, however, shaky ground in the M&A space is nothing new: M&A has gone through several ups and downs during the past several years, with the COVID-19 pandemic leading to a historic low in 2020, while economic and geopolitical events have further shaken up the market.
In the face of persistent change, some decision-makers have adjusted their M&A strategies to best fit their businesses’ goals, according to a recent report by Bain & Company. The report noted an 11% jump in “strategic M&A”— a category which includes corporate M&A deals — from January to May 2025.
“Some battle-hardened executives are learning how to live with the shocks and are becoming more strategic in using the disruption to their benefit,” the report noted. “They have strengthened balance sheets, are running lean on cost, and building resiliency. As a result, they can respond more nimbly to strategic challenges and maintain a longer-term view on their M&A agenda.”
