Goldman Sachs and Houlihan Lokey have emerged as the top mergers and acquisitions (M&A) financial advisers by value and volume, respectively, for 2021 according to GlobalData’s Financial Deals Database. The leading data and analytics company notes that Goldman Sachs advised on 468 deals worth $1.2 trillion – the highest value among all the advisers, and Houlihan Lokey advised on 531 deals worth $94 billion – the highest volume figure.

Aurojyoti Bose, Lead Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan were the only two firms to advise on close to 500 deals while also surpassing $1 trillion in deal value. Meanwhile, around 50% of the deals advised by Goldman Sachs were billion-dollar deals*. Among these were 27 mega deals, valued at more than or equal to $10bn. This played a pivotal role in Goldman Sachs reaching the No.1 M&A position by value.”

Impressively, Houlihan Lokey reached the No.1 position by volume advising on more than 500 deals, the only firm to do so. The only reason the company didn’t make it to the Top 20 list by value was that only 19 of the deals advised by the firm were billion-dollar deals.

An analysis of GlobalData’s Financial Deals Database reveals that JP Morgan occupied the second position by value, with 495 deals worth $1 trillion; followed by Morgan Stanley, with 305 deals worth $792 billion; Bank of America, with 263 deals worth $617 billion; and Citi, with 277 deals worth $514 billion.

JP Morgan also occupied the second position by volume, followed by Rothschild & Co, with 490 deals worth $280 billion. Goldman Sachs occupied the fourth position by volume, while PwC secured the fifth rank with 349 deals worth $54 billion.

* valued more than or equal to $1bn.