Dealmaking is at the beginning of a recovery whose peak will exceed the record $4 trillion of takeovers clinched at the height of the merger boom in 2007, according to Evercore Partners Inc.'s Roger Altman.

Companies are pursuing deals "in the midst of a classic, cyclical upswing," said Altman, founder of New York-based investment bank Evercore. Buyers from Applied Materials Inc. to Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd. racked up more than $32 billion in purchases globally this week, bringing 2011's total to $839 billion, a 23 percent increase from a year earlier, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

"Our view is that, at the peak of this new cycle, total volume will surpass the previous 2007 peak," Altman said in an interview this week. M&A cycles "tend to last five to seven years, and we are two years into it."