The Second Wave of M&A Resurgence

Offers on durable medical equipment (DME) companies right now are the strongest they’ve been in five years. If you’ve been waiting for the right moment to sell, that moment is here. DME merger and acquisition activity is accelerating, and the fourth quarter of 2026 is on track to deliver some of the highest deal volume the sector has seen since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Challenges like interest rates, inflation, geopolitical instability, rising supply chain costs and new Medicaid and Affordable Care Act restrictions under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act all seem to call for reduced transaction activity. And yet the opposite is happening.

Why? The forces driving DME deal activity right now are largely specific to this market, and they follow a pattern this industry has seen before: a surge, a lull and now a second climb.

The Cycle Is Repeating

DME transaction volume surged during the pandemic as demand for ventilators and other home-based medical equipment spiked and buyers moved quickly to build scale. It dropped afterward, as interest rates climbed and inflation squeezed margins across the sector. This lull ran for roughly two years—long enough that some owners assumed the deal market had simply moved on.

It hadn’t. Rather, the market was resetting. During that stretch, a wave of mid-sized DME companies completed private equity recapitalizations, taking on new ownership and fresh capital. Those companies used the money to retool their operations, adopt new technology and build the kind of operational efficiency that makes a business more attractive to the next buyer.

We’re now a few years into those ownership periods, and many of those platforms are sitting on cash and facing pressure to grow toward an exit. Acquisition is the fastest, most reliable path to get there, and the pressure alone is one of the clearest drivers behind the deal activity happening right now.

Private Equity Has Cash— Not Time

Private equity firms are holding trillions of dollars in dry powder globally. That’s capital that has been raised but not deployed, and that money comes with a built-in clock attached. Fund life cycles force firms to put capital to work within a set window, and DME is increasingly where capital is landing.

During the pandemic, similar pressure sent private equity firms investing heavily in other home-based service categories, like plumbing, pest control, and heating, ventilating and air conditioning. Firms built reliable roll-up strategies in those spaces, proved the model worked and made money doing it.

DME is getting the same look now. The market is fragmented enough to consolidate, with plenty of smaller, well-run companies that make good acquisition targets, and firms that have succeeded with the roll-up playbook elsewhere are bringing the same approach here.

Buyers Are Competing & Prices Show It

The clearest signal of all of this is what buyers are actually paying. Offers on DME companies right now are stronger than anything I’ve seen in the past five years. The same pattern is showing up across multiple active processes right now.

The reason is business 101. When multiple well-capitalized buyers want the same asset, they compete for it, and the competition pushes prices up. Sellers who might have expected a modest valuation multiple a few years ago are now fielding offers that reflect real demand rather than a single motivated buyer. The competition is a direct result of the capital and consolidation pressure building on the buy side.

A Second Window Is Open (for Now)

This wave is expected to run well into 2027 and possibly into 2028 as private equity firms work through their current fund cycles and mid-sized platforms push toward their growth targets. It won’t last indefinitely. Capital gets deployed, growth targets get met—or the next disruption or shiny object arrives—and the window narrows.

Owners who missed the COVID-era surge now have a second shot. The window is open because of forces stronger than the usual headline risks, and it’s already narrower than it looks.

If selling is part of your plan in the coming years, the next several months are one of the better times to start that conversation. Talk with an experienced DME mergers and acquisitions advisor now, while demand is high and buyers are competing hard, rather than waiting until the window has already started to close.