President-elect Trump doesn't officially take office for another week, but investment bankers say the boom in Trump-related deals is already underway — transaction activity stymied by the regulation-heavy Biden administration is poised to explode.

That's the conclusion of a panel of investment bankers and private equity managers discussing the return of corporate deals at the Frontiers of Digital Finance Conference in Miami on Tuesday.

“We're going to have more deals coming to market in 2025 than we've had in the last two years,” said Jeffrey Levine, managing director of investment banking giant Houlihan Lokey, who spoke on the panel. “More capital has been raised in the past three years than in the history of private equity, but it hasn't been deployed.”

Sponsored by Biz2X, a private lending company that provides online lending solutions for small businesses, the conference featured some key players in finance and the intersection of finance and policy. Patrick McHenry, a former North Carolina congressman and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in his keynote speech that a Trump victory would usher in a new era of deregulation, with Republicans retaining leadership in the House and gaining a majority in the Senate. promote capital formation.

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Patrick McHenry, Republican of North Carolina and ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, speaks during a hearing Thursday, June 23, 2022, in Washington, U.S. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve System gave his most open statement (Photo by Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)

“Washington is open, and the United States economy is open,” McHenry said. “The post-financial crisis era of regulation, legislation and policy is dead and gone.”

During a panel discussion on mergers and acquisitions, David MacGown, Managing Director of Barclays' Financial Institutions Group, noted that the incoming Trump administration has seen an increase in deal appetite in anticipation of a lighter regulatory approach from the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission. and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice.

Biden appointees who lead these three agencies have shut down almost all M&A activity in recent years; Those who chose to oppose the regulatory restrictions faced protracted legal battles with the Biden contract police.

However, Trump is not expected to give carte blanche to all deals. Its regulators are still skeptical of Big Tech's power, and may view Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook and other tech giants with suspicion as they continue to grow in size.

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After Trump finalizes leadership appointments at key agencies, other businesses, such as banking, will face less regulatory scrutiny than Big Tech.

MacGown reported that Barclays is currently involved in several transactions that are a direct result of the post-election deal meltdown.

During the panel discussion, Avi Mehrotra, Head of Global Operations, Equity Advisory and Protection Practices at Goldman Sachs, said he expects consolidation in regional banks, small and mid-sized banks with less than $100 billion in assets.

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Due to their size, regional banks benefit from mergers due to so-called synergies of scale. These relate to cost savings and revenue improvements resulting from the increased size and scale that come with the combination of the two businesses.

MacGown noted that the top four investment banks—Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Bank of America—each have more than a trillion dollars in assets and generated more than half of the banking industry's total profits last year.

Wall Street sign in front of American flag (Reuters/Mike Segar/Reuters Images)

McGow views this as a potential concentration risk, observing that relaxed regulations could introduce smaller boutique firms to help mitigate this risk.

“Part of the value of a merger is finding ways to grow, and part of it is to be less concentrated at the top,” he said.

In addition to regional banks, other areas of expected accelerated M&A activity are in fintech, industrials and consumer sectors, according to Mehrotra.

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People close to the matter say the media industry is also ripe for consolidation, as Warner Bros. Firms like Discovery, Comcast and others are suffering from declining ad revenue and consumers moving away from traditional cable packages in favor of more products. their news and entertainment online.

“The thing is, Biden thought he was helping consumers by stopping the deal, and all he did was weaken these companies and make them less competitive,” one media executive told Fox Business on condition of anonymity.