Barclays and Houlihan Lokey top Q1 2026 financial services M&A adviser rankings

Barclays was the leading financial adviser in financial services mergers and acquisitions during the first quarter of 2026 by deal value, while Houlihan Lokey was first by deal count, according to GlobalData’s latest league table.

Data from GlobalData’s Financial Deals Database showed Barclays advised on transactions worth $31.4bn in the quarter.

Houlihan Lokey worked on 15 deals, the highest volume among advisers in the sector.

Morgan Stanley was placed second in the value ranking with $27.9bn in advised deals. Goldman Sachs followed with $26.8bn, ahead of Lazard on $25.6bn and JPMorgan on $25.1bn.

In the volume table, Goldman Sachs was second with 11 deals. Piper Sandler, Stifel/KBW and Raymond James Financial shared the next positions, each advising on nine deals.

GlobalData lead analyst Aurojyoti Bose commented: “Houlihan Lokey was the top adviser by volume in Q1 2025 and managed to retain that in Q1 2026. Interestingly, the number of deals it advised also remained unchanged.

“Meanwhile, all the top 10 advisers by value, including Barclays, registered growth in the total value of deals they advised in Q1 2026 compared to Q1 2025. In fact, Barclays saw more than a seven-fold jump in the total value of deals advised by it, improving its ranking from eighth in Q1 2025 to the top position in Q1 2026. It is noteworthy that Barclays advised on three billion-dollar deals* that included two mega deals valued more than $10 billion, which helped it to 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.