In 2025, the A-share mergers and acquisitions (M&A) market experienced a powerful surge. According to statistics from Tonghuashun iFinD, as the year drew to a close, nearly 1,500 listed companies had disclosed M&A transactions (including only equity and other types), with over one hundred initiating significant asset restructurings. The number of disclosed asset restructuring projects involving equity acquisitions alone approached 2,000 for the year (including multiple acquisitions by a single company). The semiconductor sector emerged as the undisputed leader in this M&A feast, becoming the most active segment, featuring both deep integration along the industry chain and bold attempts at cross-sector expansion. Based on incomplete statistics, there were 165 M&A cases in the A-share market this year involving semiconductor targets, highlighting the intense consolidation activity in the hard-tech arena. However, beneath the fervor lie underlying concerns; the challenges of post-merger integration and the risk of deal terminations cannot be overlooked. Since the end of the year, a minor wave of M&A terminations has swept through the A-share market. To date, 65 listed companies have officially announced the termination of their restructuring plans, serving as a rational warning to the heated market.

Nearly 1,500 stocks were involved in M&A activities during the year. As one of the most effective resource allocation tools in the capital markets, M&A has become a crucial lever for driving industrial consolidation and upgrading. Driven by both macro-policy guidance and endogenous industry demand, the A-share M&A market saw significantly heightened activity in 2025. According to Tonghuashun iFinD statistics, as of December 29, a total of 1,474 A-share stocks had disclosed M&A transactions, involving 1,982 equity acquisition deals, of which 114 stocks announced plans for significant asset restructuring. Regarding project progress, 905 deals have been completed, 68 have been declared failures, and the remaining projects are still in the planning stage. Serving as a vital path for industrial upgrading among listed companies, industrial M&A has dominated the landscape. Examples abound, from Beijierte announcing its wholly-owned subsidiary's plan to acquire a controlling stake in Yunnan Wenyie Nonferrous Metal Co., Ltd. via equity purchase, to Guolin Technology planning to purchase a 91.07% stake in Xinjiang Kailianjie Petrochemical Co., Ltd., all representing listed companies leveraging M&A to integrate their industrial chains based on business development needs. Beyond industrial M&A, some listed companies have set their sights on cross-sector acquisitions. For instance, Markor Home sought to cross over and acquire control of Shenzhen Wandetai Photoelectric Technology Co., Ltd., a leading high-speed copper cable manufacturer. In terms of deal types, "small but beautiful" cash acquisitions advanced in tandem with "behemoth" restructurings. Regarding the amounts involved in restructurings, Tonghuashun iFinD data shows that the total transaction value was disclosed for 1,522 M&A events during the year, with 2 of them exceeding one hundred billion yuan. Specifically, the restructuring involving China Shenhua Energy Company Limited involved the highest total transaction value, approximately 133.598 billion yuan, a record-breaking sum in A-share history. Ranking second was the absorption merger of Dongxing Securities and Cinda Securities by China International Capital Corporation Limited (CICC), involving about 114.275 billion yuan, representing another case of deep integration among major brokerages following the release of the new "National Nine Articles." Furthermore, including China Shenhua and CICC, a total of 11 stocks had restructuring plans during the year with total transaction values exceeding 10 billion yuan.

Semiconductors became the hottest sector. In 2025, the semiconductor industry became the absolute focal point of the A-share M&A market, ranking at the forefront across various metrics including deal volume, financing scale, and market attention. Based on incomplete statistics, among the M&A activities of A-share listed companies this year, there were 165 restructuring cases where the target assets belonged to the semiconductor industry, including 17 significant asset restructurings. Within the semiconductor M&A wave, intra-industry deals were particularly heated. For example, Puya Semiconductor disclosed a restructuring plan on December 9, proposing to acquire a 49% equity stake in Zhuhai Nuoya Changtian Storage Technology Co., Ltd. through issuing shares, convertible bonds, and cash payments, while also raising supporting funds. Additionally, several listed companies in the semiconductor sector, such as Sai Microelectronics, Telink Semiconductor, and Halo Microelectronics, also disclosed announcements related to planning semiconductor acquisitions. Zhi Peiyuan, Vice Chairman of the Listed Company Investment Professional Committee of the China Investment Association, pointed out that the reason listed companies acquire semiconductor assets to expand their industrial chains may lie in the industry's characteristics of being technology-intensive, capital-intensive, and having long cycles; leading enterprises can shorten R&D cycles and reduce transaction costs through vertical mergers. "Conducting cross-industry M&A based on goals like transformation and upgrading" is also one of the aspects mentioned in the "Six M&A Guidelines." Beyond intra-chain semiconductor M&A, there are also companies seeking cross-sector acquisitions to enter the semiconductor field, aiming to build a second growth curve and enhance the company's asset scale, operating revenue, and net profit levels. For instance, outdoor equipment giant Toread planned to invest a total of 678 million yuan to acquire two semiconductor assets; Shikong Technology, primarily engaged in the night-time economy and deliverable smart city businesses, planned to acquire a 100% stake in Shenzhen Jiahe Jinwei Electronic Technology Co., Ltd. In terms of the amounts spent by A-share companies to acquire semiconductor assets, the acquisition led by Siltronic (referred to in context as Huagui Chanye, likely a reference to a domestic silicon wafer producer) to increase its capital and acquire a partial equity stake in Shanghai Xinsheng Jingtou Semiconductor Technology Co., Ltd. ranked first, with a transaction value of approximately 7.04 billion yuan. Furthermore, there were 18 other acquisitions of semiconductor assets during the year with values exceeding 1 billion yuan. Guo Tao, an angel investor and senior artificial intelligence expert, further elaborated that the essence of the semiconductor M&A boom lies in three factors: first, semiconductors, as a national strategic emerging industry, benefit from strong policy support and vast market potential, making them a darling of capital; second, some listed companies attempt to boost their stock prices by acquiring semiconductor-themed assets through cross-sector M&A, catering to market speculation; third, the domestic semiconductor industry is in a rapid development phase, with a scarcity of high-quality targets, leading companies to rush into M&A to seize market share, but potentially overlooking the compatibility between their own resources and the industry.

Integration and termination risks. Although the A-share M&A market achieved a comprehensive recovery in 2025, behind the活跃 activity lurked multiple risks requiring vigilance from all market participants, including insider trading, "deceptive" restructurings, and integration failures. It was noted that as 2025 approached its end, many listed companies intensively terminated their M&A plans, particularly in the semiconductor sector. A particularly high-profile case was the termination of the share swap absorption merger between Hygon Information Technology and Sugon. After more than half a year of planning, on December 9, both Hygon and Sugon disclosed announcements stating the decision to terminate the significant asset restructuring. Regarding the reason for termination, Hygon stated that due to the large scale of the transaction, involving numerous relevant parties, the论证 of the restructuring plan took a considerable time, and the market environment had changed significantly since the initial planning stage, making the conditions for implementing the significant asset restructuring immature, leading to the decision to terminate. Beyond this, Nationalchip announced on November 28 the termination of its plan to acquire equity in SMIC (Ningbo); Siripu announced on December 9 the termination of its plan to acquire equity in Ningbo Aura Semiconductor Co., Ltd.; and VeriSilicon announced on December 12 the termination of its acquisition of a 97.007% stake in Xinlai Zhirong. Guo Tao commented that the wave of restructuring terminations in the A-share semiconductor sector towards year-end is an inevitable reflection of market rationality returning and the laws of industrial development. On one hand, the semiconductor industry features high technical barriers, long investment cycles, and substantial capital requirements; some enterprises underestimated the target's technical strength, financial status, and integration difficulty during initial assessments, discovering during the process that the core technology was immature, performance commitments were hard to fulfill, or that agreement on core terms like transaction price and control could not be reached, ultimately leading to termination. On the other hand, regulatory scrutiny of semiconductor M&A has become increasingly strict, focusing on the authenticity of target assets, valuation reasonableness, and post-merger integration feasibility, thereby constraining "pseudo-restructurings" and "concept-chasing" behavior, with many deals lacking substantive industrial logic being halted during the review process. Many industry experts expressed that looking ahead to 2026, with continued policy impetus and the ongoing release of industrial demand, the M&A market is expected to transition from a "policy-driven recovery" to "endogenous industrial prosperity."