Goldman Sachs and Houlihan Lokey were the top financial advisers for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in H1 2023 globally, according to GlobalData’s latest financial advisers league table.

The leading data and analytics company ranks financial advisers by the value and volume of M&A deals on which they advised. According to its financial deals database, Goldman Sachs took the top position in the ranking by value, after advising on $209.3bn worth of deals in H1 2023. Houlihan Lokey advised on a total of 128 deals in the period, becoming the leading adviser by volume. “Goldman Sachs, despite a decline in total value of deals advised by it in H1 2023 compared to H1 2022, managed to retain its leadership position by this metric,” says Aurojyoti Bose, lead analyst at GlobalData. “Moreover, it was the only firm with total deal value surpassing $200bn in H1 2023. Goldman Sachs advised on 35 billion-dollar deals [deals valued at equal to or more than $1bn], of which seven were mega deals valued at more than $10bn. Involvement in such big-ticket deals helped Goldman Sachs top the chart by value.” Bose continues: “Meanwhile, Houlihan Lokey, despite registering a fall in the number of deals advised by it, managed to improve its ranking by volume and went ahead from occupying the second position in H1 2022 to lead by this metric in H1 2023. However, there was a close competition from Rothschild & Co for the top spot by volume.” Rothschild & Co, with 123 deals, was the runner-up in GlobalData’s global ranking of advisers by deal volume, followed by PwC with 90 deals, JP Morgan with 85 deals and KPMG with 83 deals. JP Morgan came second in terms of value by advising on $190.5bn worth of deals, followed by Bank of America with $186.3bn, Centerview Partners with $133.8bn and Morgan Stanley with $121.3bn. 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.