BNN Bloomberg spoke with Marco Tomassetti, president of KPMG Canada Corporate Finance, about why domestic dealmaking is likely to dominate, which sectors could see the most activity, and how companies are adapting their strategies in response to tariffs and upcoming trade negotiations.<\/p>\n
Key TakeawaysAbout one-third of Canadian businesses plan to pursue a major acquisition, marking a historically high level of deal intent.Canada\u2019s nation-building agenda and large-scale infrastructure projects are expected to be a key driver of M&A activity in 2026.Canadian-to-Canadian transactions are expected to make up the bulk of dealmaking as companies look to build scale and expertise at home.Infrastructure-related services, health care and AI-linked software and digital infrastructure are among the sectors expected to see the most activity.Trade uncertainty and potential tariff risks remain a concern, but deal structures such as earnouts are helping transactions move forward.![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/XG2MKSCWBNB77GJLVE7EY2O3UU.jpg\")
Marco Tomassetti, president of KPMG Canada Corporate Finance Marco Tomassetti, president of KPMG Canada Corporate Finance <\/p>\n
Read the full transcript below:<\/p>\n
LINDSAY: A new report from KPMG says Canada\u2019s nation-building agenda and favourable business environment are expected to spur mergers and acquisitions activity in the coming year. The report says about a third of businesses are planning to make a major acquisition. Here to tell us more is Marco Tomassetti, president of KPMG Canada Corporate Finance. It\u2019s good to have you join us. Thanks so much.<\/p>\n
MARCO: Thanks for having me.<\/p>\n
LINDSAY: This is very interesting, I think. To start, can you just tell us what you think business is like, about Canada\u2019s business landscape right now?<\/p>\n
MARCO: I think, in general, interest rates in Canada have come down since we saw the heights in 2023. I think, directionally, they\u2019re quite stable, more towards a kind of long-term norm. And I think there is a lot of capital available in Canada, both from Canadian sources as well as outside sources. So I think the environment, from a kind of big macro perspective, sits well for M&A.<\/p>\n
Then, toppled upon that, I think if you think in the early part of last year, we discovered that our trade relationships with the U.S. may have actually changed. It wasn\u2019t just rhetoric. When the tariffs were announced, it became very real for businesses. So I think, as a result of that, what you\u2019re seeing is entrepreneurs, who are very resilient, seeing a lot of fog in their front windshield if they\u2019re trying to think about the future of their businesses.<\/p>\n
So they need to look for innovative ways to grow organically and to continue to grow their business, to provide opportunities for their people, just to continue to grow. And I think when you think about that, that kind of sparks, well, what do we do?<\/p>\n
So I think doing acquisitions amongst Canadian-to-Canadian firms makes a lot of sense. And I think when you layer on top of that the kind of agenda that we have in Canada for significant projects \u2014 major projects funded by government and otherwise \u2014 or if you think of some of the data centre-type investments for the kind of AI value chain that are coming down the pipe in Canada, what you\u2019re going to see is a lot of capital flowing into Canadian companies and Canadian projects.<\/p>\n
And when you think about that, those projects aren\u2019t made in isolation. So those projects require components. They require skilled labour. They require a bunch of technical expertise. So you think of the engineering firms, the electrical contractors, the HVAC businesses, all these ancillary business services that surround these projects.<\/p>\n
And for the most part, with the size and scale of these projects, you can see how it may be difficult, organically, to build up the capacity to deliver as a supplier to those projects. So I think that naturally will \u2014 and we\u2019re already seeing it in the market today \u2014 naturally spark kind of M&A activity, where companies have to buy capability and buy scale in order to serve these projects that are coming down from all this investment.<\/p>\n
LINDSAY: You mentioned Canadian-to-Canadian acquisitions, like a Canadian company acquiring another Canadian company. Is that what we\u2019re seeing the most of? When we say the report says a third of businesses are planning to make a major acquisition, is that mostly Canada to Canada? Because we have seen some foreign acquisitions as well of Canadian companies.<\/p>\n
MARCO: Yeah. So I think in the report, that is for Canadian-domiciled companies. What are their intentions? And their intentions are, a third of them, to make acquisitions, which historically, that\u2019s a pretty high number that we\u2019ve not seen in the past.<\/p>\n
And so I think what that\u2019s going to spark is there will be some Canadians buying U.S. assets, partially to kind of counteract that trade, if you will. But I think the majority of those transactions, the intention will be buying Canadian-to-Canadian targets.<\/p>\n
And so think about, again, building capacity or building expertise on top of what they have today.<\/p>\n
LINDSAY: Got it. If we\u2019re talking about certain sectors that we see the most M&As happening in over the next year, is there a certain sector?<\/p>\n
MARCO: Yeah, I think it\u2019s in the mid-market. It is broad. There are, unfortunately, some sectors that are really impacted by tariffs. And as I mentioned earlier, it\u2019s really hard to acquire things when you can\u2019t really predict cash flows, what they\u2019re going to be in the future \u2014 what I say when it\u2019s foggy in the windshield.<\/p>\n
But I think there are a number of sectors around infrastructure, whether it\u2019s engineering, whether it\u2019s contractors, electrical contractors, HVAC-type systems. A lot of those companies, we\u2019re seeing more and more activity.<\/p>\n
And then you also see things like health care, where there\u2019s been a lot of activity historically, and we think that will continue going into 2026 and beyond. And then, of course, a lot of activity around the whole AI trade scenario, where there\u2019s so much buzz around AI, but also so much infrastructure being built.<\/p>\n
We will see a lot of kind of software-type transactions, which we\u2019ve seen over the last while. There\u2019s a lot of capital flowing into those sectors.<\/p>\n
LINDSAY: From what you\u2019re hearing from businesses too, is there concern about the CUSMA renegotiations that we\u2019re going to be seeing later this year?<\/p>\n
MARCO: There definitely is. And I think what we really saw last year was when we all realized that the tariffs were going to be real. They weren\u2019t just kind of rhetoric, and that caused a lot of M&A activity to really slow down, and a lot of deals got halted and stopped.<\/p>\n
But from there, entrepreneurs are pretty resilient, and they kind of move forward. I think in some industries where there is a real threat of tariffs, then you will see a slowdown in those kinds of sectors.<\/p>\n
But we\u2019re also seeing more structure in deals. So, for example, if I\u2019m looking to buy something and there\u2019s a threat of tariffs, I might put some of that value into an earnout-type structure so that I have some protection if there are some risks in the future.<\/p>\n
So I do believe that the macro conditions are strong, the capital investment is strong, and we\u2019re seeing a pretty strong start to 2026. So we continue to believe that there\u2019s going to be a lot of activity, that entrepreneurs will kind of see through and see around the tariffs by either expanding where they\u2019re looking to grow their businesses, or just finding innovative ways to access clients or customers in the U.S.<\/p>\n
LINDSAY: That was Marco Tomassetti, president of KPMG Canada Corporate Finance. Appreciate you joining us today. Thanks so much for the information.<\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
This BNN Bloomberg summary and transcript of the Jan. 19, 2026 interview with Marco Tomassetti are published with the assistance of AI. Original research, interview questions and added context was created by BNN Bloomberg journalists. An editor also reviewed this material before it was published to ensure its accuracy and adherence with BNN Bloomberg editorial policies and standards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marco Tomassetti, president of KPMG Canada Corporate Finance, joins BNN Bloomberg to discuss Canadian M&A in 2026. Canada\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420372,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-420371","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-economy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}