Morgan Stanley and Rothschild & Co have led the financial advisers rankings for European mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the first nine months (Q1–Q3) of 2026.
GlobalData’s financial deals database place Morgan Stanley at the top in terms of value, with $235.2bn worth of transactions.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Access deeper industry intelligence
Experience unmatched clarity with a single platform that combines unique data, AI, and human expertise.
Rothschild & Co secured the highest total by volume, participating in 80 deals.
In the value rankings, second place went to Barclays, which advised on transactions totalling $132.2bn.
Goldman Sachs took the subsequent spot with $116.8bn, ahead of JPMorgan at $106.2bn and Evercore at $103.7bn.
Measured by volume, PwC secured the second spot with 79 deals and Houlihan Lokey claimed third position with 77 deals, followed by Ernst & Young with 70 deals and KPMG with 69 deals.
GlobalData lead analyst Aurojyoti Bose said: “Rothschild & Co was the top adviser by volume during Q1-Q3 2025 and managed to retain its leadership position by this metric during Q1-Q3 2026 as well despite a year-on-year (YoY) drop in the total number of deals advised by it. However, it faced close competition from PwC, which occupied the second spot by volume with 79 deals.
“Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley was the only adviser with more than $200bn in total value of deals advised. Subsequently, it registered more than a three-fold jump YoY in the total value of deals advised and its ranking improved from second to the top position. During Q1-Q3 2026, Morgan Stanley advised on $37bn deals that also included six mega deals valued more than $10bn.”
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.
