Morgan Stanley led the European mergers and acquisitions adviser rankings in the first quarter of 2026 by total deal value, while KPMG ranked first by number of deals, according to a league table released by GlobalData.
Figures from GlobalData’s Financial Deals Database showed Morgan Stanley worked on deals worth $56.3bn.
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KPMG led by volume, advising on a total of 23 deals.
In the value ranking, Citi was second with $40.4bn, followed by Barclays on $37.3bn, Lazard on $30.4bn and Rothschild & Co on $27.6bn.
In the volume table, Ernst & Young, Houlihan Lokey and PWC each recorded 20 deals, placing them behind KPMG. Rothschild & Co followed with 19 deals.
Aurojyoti Bose, lead analyst at GlobalData, said: “Both Morgan Stanley and KPMG registered year-on-year (YoY) improvement in the value and volume of deals advised by them in Q1 2026. Resultantly, their ranks by these metrics also improved. The number of deals advised by KPMG increased by 53.3% YoY and its ranking by volume improved from the ninth to the top position.
“Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley registered more than four-fold jump in the total value of deals advised by it, which helped its ranking improve from the fourth position to the top spot. 11 of the 18 deals advised by Morgan Stanley during Q1 2026 were billion-dollar deals that also include a mega deal valued more than $10bn. The involvement in these big-ticket deals helped Morgan Stanley register a massive jump in terms of 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.
