Barclays ranked first by deal value among financial services mergers and acquisitions (M&A) advisers in the first half of 2026, while Houlihan Lokey led by number of transactions, according to GlobalData’s latest league table.
Using figures from its Financial Deals Database, GlobalData said Barclays advised on deals worth $37.3bn in total. Houlihan Lokey, meanwhile, worked on 28 transactions, the highest volume in the ranking.
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UBS placed second by value with $33.4bn in advised deals. Goldman Sachs followed with $32.8bn, ahead of Morgan Stanley on $30.9bn and JPMorgan on $27.3bn.
By number of deals, Piper Sandler was second with 26 transactions. Stifel/KBW followed with 20, while Goldman Sachs and Raymond James Financial each advised on 17 deals.
GlobalData lead analyst Aurojyoti Bose commented: “Houlihan Lokey was the top adviser by volume in H1 2025 and retained its leadership position by this metric in H1 2026, despite a marginal drop in the total number of deals advised by it.
“Meanwhile, the total value of deals advised by Barclays increased by 17.2% year-on-year in H1 2026. Resultantly, its ranking in the value chart improved from fifth position in H1 2025 to the top position in H1 2026. Half of the total number of deals advised by Barclays in H1 2026 were billion-dollar deals*, which also included two mega deals valued more than $10bn. Involvement in these big-ticket deals helped Barclays register improvement in value as well as its ranking by this metric.”
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.
