Top M&A Investment Banks: 10 Firms Doing the Biggest Deals
Global M&A hit $4.8 trillion in 2025, the second-biggest year ever recorded, and the first half of 2026 broke the all-time first-half record at $2.8 trillion. Sixty-eight deals of $10 billion or more were announced in 2025 alone, the most since records began, and a remarkably stable set of ten banks keeps showing up when those deals get signed. This list ranks them by the only evidence that matters: named mandates on the biggest transactions of 2025 and 2026, sourced from the deal press releases.
As a former McKinsey consultant who runs WSG, I push students to learn league tables the way sports fans learn standings, because "which banks do the biggest deals" is the first question every M&A interview silently tests. Here's the current answer.
The banks doing the biggest deals are not always the same ones dominating other leagues, so it is worth cross-checking against the general bank comparison, with the breakdown here, and the sector-specific real estate rundown, which we cover here.
Which bank does the most M&A?
Goldman Sachs, by value, in essentially every year and every provider's table. It advised on roughly $1.48 trillion of announced deals in 2025, touching 38 of the year's 68 ten-billion-dollar-plus transactions, and led H1 2026 at $597 billion per GlobalData. By deal count the answer flips to Houlihan Lokey, which is a different game covered in our middle market guide.
Should you target a bulge bracket or an elite boutique for M&A?
Both lanes can put you on the biggest deals in the market, so the better choice comes down to how you want to work.Bulge brackets (BB) pair advice with financing muscle and huge analyst classes. Elite boutiques run advisory-only teams where analysts see more of each deal with fewer layers. The distinction is visible on the biggest transactions. In Kimberly-Clark's $48.7 billion acquisition of Kenvue, Centerview and Goldman Sachs advised Kenvue, while PJT Partners and J.P. Morgan advised Kimberly-Clark. The transaction is a good reminder that boards don't view the two models as mutually exclusive: an elite boutique can sit across the table from a bulge bracket on a multibillion-dollar deal, with both bringing different strengths to the process.
Neither is inherently better. If you want the broadest possible banking toolkit and the option to work across products, the bulge bracket model is compelling. If you know you want to become an M&A advisor and value lean teams and pure advisory work, an elite boutique can be the better training ground.
How to read a league table before you quote one
Three different scoreboards get called "the league table," and confusing them is a classic interview fumble. Value tables credit every advisor on a deal with its full size, which is how six banks each "did" the same $85 billion railroad merger. Count tables reward volume shops like Houlihan Lokey. Fee tables, Dealogic's specialty, measure what clients actually paid, which is why JPM tops fees while Goldman tops value.
Providers disagree below the podium, too. LSEG, Dealogic, and GlobalData all agree on the top three; ranks four through ten shuffle depending on methodology. The top three are consistent everywhere, so quote those confidently and hedge the rest.
The 2026 backdrop is worth knowing cold: 47 mega-deals of $10 billion-plus in H1 alone, roughly $1.3 trillion of them, with technology the biggest sector at $649 billion. Interviewers this fall will assume you know it's a boom.
The 10 firms:
Goldman Sachs topped 2025's league tables with $1.48 trillion in announced deals and kept the H1 2026 crown.
Website: goldmansachs.com/careers/students
2025-26 receipts: sell-side for Electronic Arts on its $55 billion take-private, the largest all-cash sponsor buyout ever, sell-side for Wiz on Google's $32 billion acquisition, and advisor to Dominion on its $67 billion NextEra combination
Entry: Investment Banking Summer Analyst
The default logo on the biggest deal of any given quarter. When a record-breaking transaction prints, the base rate says Goldman advised someone on it.
2. J.P. Morgan
J.P. Morgan pairs a top-three M&A value rank with the industry's largest overall fee pool, $10.1 billion across investment banking in 2025.
Website: careers.jpmorgan.com
2025-26 receipts: advisor to Warner Bros. Discovery in the Paramount Skydance takeover saga, to Kimberly-Clark on its $48.7 billion Kenvue acquisition, to the PIF-led consortium buying Electronic Arts, and to Dominion alongside Goldman
Entry: Investment Banking Summer Analyst across US campuses
Both sides of the market know JPM: buyers want its balance sheet, targets want its defense practice.
Morgan Stanley led the deal that would rewire American freight, advising Union Pacific on its $85 billion Norfolk Southern merger.
Website: morganstanley.com/careers
2025-26 receipts: Union Pacific lead advisor with Wells Fargo, plus Europe's #1 spot by 2025 deal value at $109.5 billion per GlobalData
Entry: Investment Banking Summer Analyst
The UP mandate is the kind analysts frame: a first-of-its-kind transcontinental railroad combination that will spend years in front of regulators.
BofA sat as sole advisor to Norfolk Southern opposite two banks, an $85 billion solo seat.
Website: careers.bankofamerica.com
2025-26 receipts: Norfolk Southern's exclusive advisor, buy-side for Alphabet on the $32 billion Wiz acquisition, and a seat on Paramount's advisor roster in the WBD takeover
Entry: Investment Banking Summer Analyst
Sole-advisor seats on mega-deals are rare and prized. Getting one against a two-bank lineup is a franchise statement.
5. Citi
Citi ran the buyer's side of 2025's biggest cable deal, Charter's $34.5 billion acquisition of Cox.
Website: jobs.citi.com
2025-26 receipts: Charter advisor alongside LionTree, a #4-by-value 2025 finish, and financing roles across the Paramount-WBD structure
Entry: Investment Banking Summer Analyst
Citi's M&A rebuild under new leadership is visible in the tables, and rising franchises staff analysts onto live mandates fast.
Centerview led the defining media deal of the decade, advising Paramount on the $110 billion Warner Bros. Discovery takeover.
Website: centerviewpartners.com/careers
2025-26 receipts: lead advisor with RedBird on Paramount-WBD, sell-side for Kenvue on the $48.7 billion Kimberly-Clark deal, and the healthcare run our healthcare banks guide details
Model: advisory only, no trading or lending, with the highest revenue per partner among the boutiques
Entry: small generalist analyst classes recruited on a short campus list
Centerview analysts work fewer, bigger, more senior-staffed deals than anyone their age on the street. The trade is scarcity: classes are tiny and the process is brutal.
7. Evercore
Evercore is the largest independent advisory firm by revenue, a record $3.9 billion in 2025, and it earned a seat on the WBD side of the year's biggest deal.
Website: evercore.com/careers
2025-26 receipts: Warner Bros. Discovery advisor with Allen & Company and JPM, Cox's advisor group on the Charter merger, and top-five US advisory fee rankings
Entry: Investment Banking Summer Analyst, the largest analyst intake of any independent firm
Evercore built the proof that a boutique can scale without a balance sheet. For students, it offers boutique staffing with bulge bracket-sized recruiting infrastructure.
8. Lazard
Lazard took lead-advisor credit on the largest utility deal in US history, NextEra's $67 billion combination with Dominion.
Website: lazard.com/careers/students
2025-26 receipts: NextEra lead advisor, May 2026, plus the restructuring franchise our RX guide covers
Heritage: the oldest name in elite advisory, with the deepest cross-border bench
Entry: dedicated Summer Analyst tracks including a rare M&A-and-restructuring blend
The NextEra mandate answered a fair question about Lazard's US momentum with an exclamation point.
9. Barclays
Barclays is the only European bank holding a top-tier US M&A franchise, finishing #3 in Europe and inside the global top ten.
Website: home.barclays/careers
2025-26 receipts: $53.5 billion of 2025 European deal value per GlobalData plus recurring US large-cap technology and industrial mandates
Entry: US Investment Banking Summer Analyst classes in New York, inherited from the Lehman platform
For candidates, Barclays reads as a bulge bracket (BB)with slightly less applicant saturation than the American five, at the same deal altitude.
10. PJT Partners
PJT advised Kimberly-Clark on the $48.7 billion Kenvue acquisition, the boutique seat on 2025's biggest consumer deal.
Website: pjtpartners.com/careers
2025-26 receipts: Kimberly-Clark advisor alongside JPM, plus the restructuring dominance covered in our RX banks guide
Entry: small Summer Analyst classes, with separate strategic advisory and restructuring tracks
PJT runs the steepest analyst-to-mandate ratio in the top ten. Tiny classes, enormous deals, and a recruiting bar to match.
What mega-deal seats mean for an analyst year
Scale changes the analyst job in specific ways worth knowing before you rank firms. Mega-deals run twelve to eighteen months through regulatory review, so a BB analyst might spend a full year on one live situation, deep on antitrust models and board updates, while a boutique analyst on the same deal sees the strategic work with fewer production layers. Neither is better; they build different muscles, and interviewers respect candidates who can articulate which muscle they want.
The pending deals above also mean staffing demand is real right now. Banks hire analyst classes into the visible pipeline, and three of 2026's largest transactions won't close before the Summer 2027 interns show up.
What about the banks not on this list?
Jefferies posted its best advisory year ever, $2.1 billion of 2025 revenue, and sits just outside the value top ten while hiring bigger analyst classes than the boutiques above. Rothschild & Co led all of Europe by deal count with 119 in 2025, the continent's volume king. Wells Fargo crashed the top ten by value for the first time via the Union Pacific mandate. UBS is rebuilding US M&A on the Credit Suisse integration. Houlihan Lokey out-counts everyone, and Moelis advised Netflix's rival bid for WBD. Every one of these firms is a real M&A career; they just missed this list's biggest-deal filter for 2025-26.
The seven deals to study before any interview
If you learn nothing else from 2025 and 2026, learn these, because they cover every deal archetype an interviewer can ask about: Paramount Skydance's takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery (hostile-turned-friendly media consolidation, pending), Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern ($85 billion merger under regulatory review), NextEra and Dominion (the $67 billion utility record, pending), the Electronic Arts $55 billion take-private (sponsor consortium, closed), Kimberly-Clark and Kenvue ($48.7 billion consumer combination), Charter and Cox ($34.5 billion cable endgame), and Google's $32 billion Wiz acquisition (the largest VC-backed sale ever, closed).
Each press release names every advisor. Three of the seven are still pending, so they'll stay on live conversation topics straight through the 2027 recruiting season.
How to use this list in recruiting
League tables move annually, so pin claims to a provider and a year in interviews: "Goldman led 2025 by value per LSEG" survives scrutiny, "Goldman is number one" invites a follow-up you don't want. Then learn one deal per firm you're interviewing with, from the press release, not a summary. Advisor rosters, price, and rationale are all public, and the candidate who knows that Centerview and RedBird led Paramount's side while JPM, Allen & Company, and Evercore sat with WBD has done something 95 percent of applicants haven't.
Summer 2027 applications are opening across these firms now through fall 2026.. Ten firms, ten press releases, one week of evening reading. The biggest-deal banks reward candidates who talk about actual deals, and every deal on this page is checkable from your dorm room.
Comments