Goldman Sachs ranked first among mergers and acquisitions financial advisers by deal value in the first quarter of 2026, while Houlihan Lokey held the top spot by deal volume, according to GlobalData’s latest Financial Advisers League Table.
The rankings, which assess advisers based on the value and number of merger and acquisition transactions they worked on, showed Goldman Sachs advised on deals worth a combined $267bn during the quarter.
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Houlihan Lokey, meanwhile, led by volume after working on 76 transactions.
GlobalData lead analyst Aurojyoti Bose said: “Despite a drop in the total number of deals advised by Goldman Sachs during Q1 2026 compared to Q1 2025, the corresponding value almost doubled due to its involvement in big-ticket deals.
“Resultantly, it went ahead from occupying the second position by value in Q1 2025 to top the chart by this metric in Q1 2026. More than half of the total number of deals advised by Goldman Sachs during Q1 2026 were billion-dollar deals. During the quarter, it advised on 27 billion-dollar deals that also included seven mega deals valued more than $10bn.
“Meanwhile. Houlihan Lokey was the top adviser by volume in Q1 2025 and managed to retain its leadership position by this metric in Q1 2026 as well.”
In the value-based ranking, Morgan Stanley placed second after advising on transactions worth $210.3bn.
JPMorgan followed with $207.1bn, while Evercore and Citi took fourth and fifth place with $131.6bn and $112.8bn, respectively.
By number of deals, Morgan Stanley ranked second with 60 transactions.
Goldman Sachs came third with 49 deals, followed by JPMorgan with 47 and Evercore with 42.
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.
