Goldman Sachs and Houlihan Lokey have emerged as the top mergers and acquisitions (M&A) financial advisers for 2024 by value and volume respectively, as per the latest financial advisers league table by GlobalData.

According to GlobalData’s Deals Database, which assesses financial advisers based on the M&A deals they have facilitated, Goldman Sachs secured the top spot in the deal value rankings by advising on deals worth $417.8bn.

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Houlihan Lokey led the volume category by advising on 296 deals throughout the year.

Rothschild & Co took the second position by deal volume, having advised on 186 transactions.

Goldman Sachs came third in this category with 179 deals, followed by UBS with 166 deals, and JP Morgan with 161 deals.

In the deal value rankings, JP Morgan claimed the second spot by advising on deals totalling $366.6bn.

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It was followed by Morgan Stanley, which advised on deals worth $349.7bn. Barclays and Citi advised on $233.9bn and $227.3bn of deals, respectively.

GlobalData lead analyst Aurojyoti Bose said: “Goldman Sachs was the top adviser by value in 2023 and also managed to retain its leadership position by this metric in 2024 as well. Although it registered a year-on-year decline in value, Goldman Sachs still remained much ahead of its peers due to its involvement in big-ticket deals.

“In 2024, Goldman Sachs advised on 88 billion-dollar deals, of which nine were mega deals valued more than $10bn.

“Meanwhile, Houlihan Lokey registered a growth in the total number of deals advised by it in during 2024 compared to the previous year. Resultantly, it went ahead from occupying the second position by volume in 2023 to top the chart by this metric in 2024. In fact, it outpaced its peers by a significant margin and just fell short of only four deals to hit the 300-deal volume mark during the year.”

GlobalData’s league tables are based on the real-time tracking of thousands of company websites, advisory company websites and other reliable sources available in 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 of the data, the company also seeks deal submissions  from leading advisers.