Goldman Sachs has either taken back its crown as the world’s top mergers-and-acquisitions adviser — or kept it, depending on the frame of reference.
The bank ended 2023 atop the leaderboard for the seventh straight year, despite trailing JPMorgan Chase at midyear, according to data from Bloomberg.
Goldman advised on 235 deals in 2023 worth more than $671 billion — including the year’s two biggest acquisitions: ExxonMobil’s $68 billion acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources, and Chevron’s $59 billion deal for Hess. That was enough for a 31.2% share of the M&A advisory market.
“The natural resources business by every measure for the last five years was out of vogue,” Stephan Feldgoise, one of Goldman Sachs’ two M&A co-heads, told Bloomberg. “We heavily invested in alternative energy and energy transition across the firm, but we maintained our franchise.”
By comparison, JPMorgan ended the year advising on roughly $593 billion, or 27.4% — just ahead of third-place Morgan Stanley’s 27.2%. No other firm counted more than a 20% share in 2023, according to the Bloomberg data. Bank of America and Citi rounded out the top five.
JPMorgan was leading the pack at the end of June, with $284 billion, compared with Goldman’s $237.1 billion. Deal volumes, however, jumped in the fourth quarter — to more than $160 billion beyond the previous three-month span.
One trend that held from the first half of 2023 is the rise of boutique investment banks. Centerview Partners ended the year in sixth place — a jump from 16th a year earlier. The firm advised acquiree Seagen on the drugmaker’s takeover by pharma giant Pfizer, the most lucrative deal from last year’s first six months.
Evercore jumped seven spots, to seventh from 14th. Barclays and UBS ranked eighth and ninth, respectively. And Royal Bank of Canada jumped seven spots to claim 10th.
Last year saw $2.16 trillion in pending and completed transactions, Bloomberg reported Friday. That’s down from $3.8 trillion in 2021.
The M&A sector reported a 42% slowdown in deal volume early in 2023, leading to cutbacks at a number of firms. Now at least one of the banks that slipped in the year-end rankings is doubling down on staffing. Barclays made more than 20 senior hires in its industry sector and M&A teams, global M&A co-heads Ihsan Essaid and Gary Posternack told Bloomberg in an emailed statement.
“In 2024, while continuing to help our corporate clients navigate an evolving strategic and economic landscape, we expect to be much more active with financial sponsors as they ramp up transaction flow,” the executives said.
