M&A activity could start to pick up as early as the third quarter of this year, spurned on by the recent recovery in the equity markets, according to a new study which compares the current downturn to the collapse and subsequent recovery of M&A after the dotcom bubble burst.

The study by data provider Thomson Reuters and JP Morgan looked at the M&A cycle from 1990 to date and pointed to the similarities between the telecoms bubble of 1999-2000 and the leverage bubble of 2005-2007.