Morgan Stanley was the leading financial adviser for European mergers and acquisitions in the first six months of 2026 by deal value, while Rothschild & Co was the busiest by number of transactions, according to GlobalData.
Morgan Stanley placed first by value, having advised on deals worth $128.3bn. Rothschild & Co came first by volume with 48 transactions.
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In the value ranking, Goldman Sachs was second with $97.8bn, followed by Barclays on $88.2bn, Bank of America on $70.6bn and JPMorgan on $65.2bn.
For deal count, Houlihan Lokey was second with 45 transactions. KPMG and PWC shared the next position with 44 deals each, while Ernst & Young recorded 40.
GlobalData lead analyst Aurojyoti Bose commented: “Morgan Stanley registered more than a five-fold year-on-year jump in the total value of deals advised by it and was the only adviser to surpass $100 billion-mark in total deal value in H1 2026. During this period, it advised on 18 billion-dollar deals* that also included three mega deals valued more than $10 billion and involvement in these big-ticket deals helped Morgan Stanley register a massive jump in terms of value.
“Morgan Stanley also held the sixth position by volume in H1 2026. Similarly, Rothschild & Co, apart from leading by volume, also occupied the ninth position by value.”
GlobalData’s league tables are based on the real-time tracking of thousands of company websites, advisory firm websites and other reliable sources available on the secondary domain. A dedicated team of analysts monitors all these sources to gather in-depth details for each deal, including adviser names.
To ensure further robustness to the data, the company also seeks submissions of deals from leading advisers.
