Owners of mid-sized U.S. companies are more optimistic about future economic conditions than they were before the election, according to a recent survey out of Citizens Commercial Banking.

Citizens said that now more than half, or 52 percent, of mid-sized businesses surveyed believe that economic conditions will improve over the next year, compared with 34 percent surveyed before the election. Another 38 percent said they thought the election would boost high expectations for M&A activity this year.

“The election results added more fuel to a positive outlook for mergers and acquisitions among middle market U.S. companies this year,” Bob Rubino, executive vice president and head of Corporate Finance and Capital Markets at Citizens Commercial Banking, said in a statement. “Some CEOs are still in wait-and-see mode, but they are optimistic about possible changes that could improve their bottom lines and generate more deal-making opportunities.”

Citizens’ commercial banking division conducted the follow-up survey last month. They surveyed 200 U.S.-based middle market business decision-makers who are open to or engaged in some type of corporate development activity and aimed to examine the impacts of the election on M&A activity. Citizens considers middle-market companies to be those with annual revenue between $5 million and $2 billion.

Citizens outlined a few other key findings from its survey:

• Among middle market business owners, 71 percent anticipated lower health care costs to their business in coming years and 68 percent expected fewer federal regulations.
• Seventy percent said they expected lower corporate tax rates while 54 percent anticipated lower individual tax rates and 39 percent expected capital gains tax rates to go down.
• Twenty-two percent of business owners are even more likely to engage in M&A activity in 2017 following the election.
• The percentage of survey respondents who expect a significant financial crisis in the next three years dropped from 48 percent to 41 percent.