JP Morgan, Houlihan Lokey lead North American M&A advisers in H1 2025

JP Morgan and Houlihan Lokey have led the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) rankings for financial advisers in North America for the first half of 2025, according to the latest financial advisers league table published by GlobalData, a data and analytics firm.

The analysis from GlobalData’s deals database indicates that JP Morgan secured the top spot in deal value, advising on transactions totalling $209.4bn.

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Houlihan Lokey led in deal volume, advising on 93 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 H1 2024 and managed to retain their respective leadership positions in H1 2025 as well. Houlihan Lokey just fell little short of hitting triple-digit deal volume during H1 2025.

“Meanwhile, JP Morgan was the only adviser to surpass $200bn in total deal value during the review period. It advised on 40 billion-dollar deals* during H1 2025 that also included six mega deals valued more than $10 billion. The involvement in these big-ticket deals helped it top the chart by value. Apart from leading by value, JP Morgan also held the second position by volume during H1 2025.”

JP Morgan ranked second in deal volume table with 74 deals, followed by Goldman Sachs with 68 deals. Although Jefferies and Piper Sandler each advised on 49 deals, Jefferies took fourth spot due to higher deal value.

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In terms of deal value, Goldman Sachs ranked second, advising on $189.3bn in transactions. Morgan Stanley, Citi, and Evercore followed, with values of $156.3bn, $153.7bn, and $128.4bn, respectively.

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.