Goldman Sachs CEO says IPO, M&A activity accelerating markedly

Goldamn Sachs (NYSE:GS) CEO David Solomon said Wednesday that the investment bank has logged strong activity across initial public offerings and mergers and acquisitions as of recent, thanks in part to a friendlier regulatory environment under the pro-growth Trump administration.

Specifically, equity issuance jumped 40% Y/Y over the last two months and gained 15% this year, Solomon said in an interview with CNBC.

Meanwhile, M&A volume climbed about 32% from a year earlier, he added. "But in dealer bigger than $10B, M&A activities [were] up 100%, so the deal-making environment has really accelerated."

He reckoned that "one of the reasons for this acceleration is when the regulatory environment is unleashing CEOs to think big and think strategically and think about how scale can advantage them in a relatively fast-changing world." Such a dynamic follows a five-year period under the Biden administration in which "the regulatory environment was inhibiting" growth.

As such, the Goldman (NYSE:GS) chief believes "we're going through a pretty good run here over the course of the next 12 to 24 months, with meaningful more M&A activity."

Goldman's (NYSE:GS) second-quarter earnings easily beat the average analyst estimates, given a strong increase in net interest income and solid gains in investment banking fees and equities revenue. Notably, a huge uptick in market activity during the period drove record quarterly equities revenue of $4.30B in Q2.

Dear readers: We recognize that politics often intersects with the financial news of the day, so we invite you to click here to join the separate political discussion.