Goldman Sachs has secured the top spot as the leading financial adviser in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) based on deal value, while Houlihan Lokey has spearheaded the number of deals advised for the first three quarters of 2025, according to the latest Financial Advisers League Table by leading data and analytics company, GlobalData.
The analysis of the Financial Deals Database indicated that Goldman Sachs advised on transactions totalling $432.3bn.
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In the realm of deal volume, Houlihan Lokey topped by offering advisory services on 240 deals.
GlobalData lead analyst Aurojyoti Bose said: “Interestingly, both Goldman Sachs and Houlihan Lokey were also the top advisers by value and volume during Q1-Q3 2024. In fact, Houlihan Lokey outpaced its peers by a big margin in terms of volume as it was the only adviser with more than 200 deals during Q1-Q3 2025.
“Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs led by value but faced close competition from JP Morgan. The investment banks had their own notable share of involvement in big-ticket deals. During Q1-Q3 2025, JP Morgan advised on 79 billion-dollar deals of worth around $411bn while Goldman Sachs advised on 84 billion-dollar deals worth around $419bn.”
JP Morgan closely followed Goldman Sachs in the value category, having advised on deals worth $426.8bn.
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By GlobalDataMorgan Stanley, Citi, and Bank of America also featured, advising on deals valued at $389bn, $273.7bn, and $256.5bn, respectively.
Volume-wise, JP Morgan also held a second spot, advising on 161 deals, closely followed by Goldman Sachs with 159.
The list of financial advisors continued with Rothschild & Co, which advised on 121 deals, and Ernst & Young, which contributed to 118 deals.
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.
