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According to a Deloitte survey of 1,000 U.S. corporate M&A executives and private equity firm professionals, 61% of survey respondents expect U.S. M&A activity to return to pre-COVID-19 levels within the next 12 months.

Private equity investors plan to remain more focused on traditional acquisitions, while simultaneously pushing pursuit of M&A alternatives - including private investment in public equity deals, minority stakes, club deals and alliances.

"Companies were starting to expand their definition of M&A to include partnerships, alliances, joint ventures and other alternative investments that create intrinsic and long-lasting value, but COVID-19 has accelerated dealmakers' needs to create more optionality for their organizations' internal and external ecosystems."

87% of M&A professionals surveyed report that their organizations were able to effectively manage a deal in a purely virtual environment, so much so that 55% anticipate that virtual dealmaking will be the preferred platform even after the pandemic is over.

"When it comes to cyber in an M&A world - it's important to develop cyber threat profiles of prospective targets and portfolio companies to determine the risks each present," said Deborah Golden, Deloitte Risk & Financial Advisory, cyber and strategic risk leader, Deloitte & Touche LLP. "CISOs understand how a data breach can negatively impact the valuation and the underlying deal structure itself. Leaving cyber out of that risk picture may lead to not only brand and reputational risk, but also significant and unaccounted remediation costs."

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