JP Morgan and Houlihan Lokey have emerged as the leading mergers and acquisitions (M&A) financial advisers in North America for the first quarter of 2025, according to GlobalData’s latest financial advisers league table.
This ranking evaluates financial advisers based on the value and volume of M&A transactions they have facilitated.
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According to GlobalData’s Deals Database, JP Morgan secured its top position in terms of deal value, advising on transactions worth a total of $127.3bn.
Houlihan Lokey led in deal volume, successfully advising on 54 transactions during the same period.
GlobalData lead analyst Aurojyoti Bose said: “Both JP Morgan and Houlihan Lokey were the top advisers by value and volume in Q1 2024 and retained their respective leadership positions in Q1 2025 as well. Houlihan Lokey was the only adviser to have advised on more than 50 deals during Q1 2025. Meanwhile, JP Morgan was among the only two advisers that managed to surpass the $100bn mark in total deal value during the review period, but still it was comfortably ahead of the firm occupying the second position by value.
“More than half of the deals advised by JP Morgan during Q1 2025 were billion-dollar deals* and involvement in these big-ticket deals helped it secure the top position by value. During Q1 2025, it advised on 25 billion-dollar deals that also included four mega deals valued more than or equal to $10bn.”
The analysis further indicates that Goldman Sachs ranked second in terms of value, advising on $110.9bn worth of deals, followed by Morgan Stanley with $89bn, Citi with $76.5bn, and Barclays with $66.7bn.
In terms of deal volume, JP Morgan held the second position with 43 transactions, followed by Goldman Sachs with 36 deals, Morgan Stanley with 31 deals, and Piper Sandler with 25 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.
