The five biggest bank M&A deals of 2025

• Key insight: There were more bank M&A deals in 2025 than in the past three years, and the combinations were generally more valuable.
• Supporting data: Banks announced at least 170 deals in 2025, up more than one-third from last year and nearly 80% from 2023.
• Forward look: A more merger-friendly regulatory environment, and speedier deal approval timelines, may beget more acquisitions in 2026.

Merger and acquisition activity between banks sprang back to life in 2025 after several years of muted dealmaking due to economic pressure, the fallout of an industry crisis and political uncertainty.

Processing Content

Banks hatched more transactions this year than in each of the past three, as a more friendly regulatory environment opened the floodgates for consolidation. Not only were there more acquisitions in 2025, but the deals also generally had bigger valuations.

In 2024, banks announced 125 deals, for a total value of $16.34 billion, per S&P Global Market Intelligence. That was a rise from 2023, which saw 96 deals for a total value of $4.4 billion.

This year, more than 170 deals have been announced for a combined $47 billion of value.

Many merger agreements are also targeting faster closes than in recent years. Most of the largest bank combinations in 2025 outlined three- to six-month timelines from when they announced the deals to when they hoped to close. A number of banks have even finalized their acquisitions ahead of the schedules they laid out.

On top of the deals announced this year, Capital One Financial also got its landmark acquisition of Discover Financial Services over the finish line in May, creating a credit card behemoth in a deal that was valued at $51.8 billion when it closed. The deal had faced contention since it was announced in February 2024, but won the regulatory green light in April of this year.

Dealmaking still hasn’t returned to its frothiest levels. In 2021, banks announced 200 deals worth a combined $76.73 billion, per S&P.

And not all deals have pleased the markets. Several of the largest bank transactions this year have led to falling stock prices at the companies involved.

Still, 2025 saw major consolidation. Here are the five highest-valued bank deals announced this year:

1. Fifth Third-Comerica: $10.9 billion

Fifth Third Bancorp’s proposed acquisition of Comerica would create the ninth-largest U.S. commercial bank, with a combined $288 billion of assets. The companies, which in October announced plans to merge, are aiming to close the transaction in the first quarter of 2026.

Fifth Third sees benefit from tapping into Dallas-based Comerica’s Texas franchise and certain lines of commercial business. Comerica has struggled with deposit costs, exacerbated by the 2023 mini-banking crisis, which a sale to Fifth Third could solve.

But the deal has faced pushback, most notably from activist investor HoldCo Asset Management. While HoldCo pressured Comerica to sell itself in the summer, it later sued the bank over its deal with Fifth Third, alleging a flawed merger process. The legal battle is ongoing, and is slated to yield discovery materials such as depositions and board information.

Still, most analysts have praised the deal’s financials. And in December, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency gave its sign-off. The deal still needs approval from the Federal Reserve Board and the Texas Department of Banking, and the two banks’ shareholders are scheduled to vote on the transaction on Jan. 6.

Fifth Third CEO Tim Spence said at the beginning of December that he had no concerns about the deal going through, despite the HoldCo lawsuit, adding that he expected the regulatory OK “around the new year.”

2. Pinnacle-Synovus: $8.6 billion

Pinnacle Financial Partners and Synovus Financial announced in July that they would combine in a merger of equals that would create a $116 billion-asset company with a stronghold in Georgia and elsewhere in the Southeast.

The companies are on track to combine on Jan. 1, on the fast end of the first-quarter timeline they originally projected. The deal won regulatory approval from the Federal Reserve in November.

Now, the combined company, which will operate under the Pinnacle flag, expects a full brand and systems conversion in the first half of 2027. Synovus CEO Kevin Blair will take over as CEO of the merged bank, while Pinnacle President and CEO Terry Turner will serve as chairman.

Investors punished the deal initially, sending both banks’ stocks down some 10% the day it was announced, largely due to fears that mergers of equals have historically underperformed. And the stock price recovery hasn’t been quick. Since the day before the banks said they were merging, Synovus’ share price has fallen about 8%, and Pinnacle’s has dropped about 5%.

Synovus and Pinnacle attempted to assuage investors in a presentation a few weeks after the deal was unveiled.

“The main thing I’m betting on, the main thing that I believe in, is that Kevin Blair is the single best person to run the next leg of the race at Pinnacle,” Turner said at the time.

3. Huntington-Cadence: $7.4 billion

Huntington Bancshares’ announcement in October that it would buy Cadence Bank came just one week after it closed a $1.9 billion acquisition of Veritex Holdings.

Both sellers are part of Ohio-based Huntington’s play for Texas.

The Cadence transaction will vault Huntington to $276 billion of assets, and will bolster its footprint across Southern markets including Orlando, Nashville and Atlanta, along with the Lone Star State’s major cities.

The two banks said in December they had received all the necessary regulatory approvals, and expected to close “on or about Feb. 1,” subject to earning “yes” votes from shareholders.

Huntington Chairman and CEO Steve Steinour called the acquisition “transformational.” The Ohio-based bank expects the acquisition to propel its market share to the top five in Dallas and Houston, and the top eight across the state.

“We are exactly where the dynamic growth in Texas is occurring,” Steinour told American Banker in October. “We think we’ve got a really powerful economic engine in Texas and these other states that will propel [Huntington] in the decades ahead, not just in 2026 and 2027.”

Huntington’s purchase of Dallas-based Veritex, which closed on Oct. 19, was the sixth-largest bank deal of 2025. The company’s Texas push comes as it also aggressively targets market share in North Carolina and South Carolina, where it plans to build dozens of branches.

4. PNC-FirstBank: $4.1 billion

PNC Financial Services Group’s purchase of FirstBank Holding Company in Colorado came as the Pittsburgh-based company has been chasing scale across the U.S. for years.

“We just effectively bought Colorado,” PNC Chairman and CEO Bill Demchak said at the time.

The deal is slated to close Jan. 5 after winning regulators’ blessings in December. PNC expects FirstBank’s footprint to accelerate growth in Arizona and in Colorado, where its branch count will triple.

And although the deal came at a steep price, analysts have said that FirstBank is worth the cost, and PNC can afford it.

Negotiations between the banks came together quickly, as the CEOs agreed to “accelerated” timelines if the price was right.

But PNC has said that organic growth is its main focus going forward, recently upping its branch investment plans. PNC said in November that it will spend $2 billion to add 300 new branches by 2030, up from last year, when it said it would spend $1.5 billion on the strategy.

PNC Chief Financial Officer Robert Reilly said in November that the bank won’t do another acquisition if there’s concern that the stock price will tumble.

“We’re not masochists,” Reilly said. “We won’t lose our discipline. We won’t lose our focus on what’s best for our shareholders.”

At the time of those comments, PNC’s stock had dipped some 10% after the FirstBank deal was announced. But it has since recovered and is now trading up about 10% since January.

5. Columbia-Pacific Premier: $2 billion

Columbia Banking System closed its acquisition of Pacific Premier Bancorp less than five months after announcing the deal, shaving about a year off of the time it took to land its previous bank purchase.

The Tacoma, Washington-based Columbia had, and still has, a lot to prove to investors regarding its purchase of Pacific Premier in Southern California. Columbia’s earlier merger with Umpqua Holdings took 17 months to close and came with more challenges than expected.

But Columbia CEO Clint Stein said when the Pacific Premier deal was made public in April that the buyer wouldn’t follow the same playbook that it used in the Umpqua transaction.

Pacific Premier accelerates Columbia’s growth in Southern California by a decade, the bank estimates, freeing up resources to expand in other regions, like Colorado and Utah.

In October, HoldCo put pressure on Columbia, demanding the bank swear off M&A, commit to more buybacks and consider selling itself after five years, or else the hedge fund would launch a proxy contest.

Following the heat from HoldCo, Stein iced any speculation around additional M&A plans, saying that the company won’t pursue another deal in the “foreseeable future.” He added that Columbia will instead use capital to buy back shares.

Stein’s comments assuaged the activist investor, which said in a subsequent presentation that it would stand down on a potential proxy battle, adding that Columbia was “finally pursuing the right path.”