Morgan Stanley and Houlihan Lokey topped the charts of financial advisers on global M&A in 2025, data shows.
According to deals data compiled by GlobalData – Just Food‘s parent – Morgan Stanley worked on deals valued at $872.7bn, last year.
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In the food-and-beverage market, Morgan Stanley’s transactions included its work on Ferrero’s agreement in July to acquire US-based breakfast cereals business WK Kellogg for $3.1bn.
Houlihan Lokey, meanwhile, handled the largest number of mandates, working on 318 deals.
The firm advised on transactions including NewPrinces’ deal to buy Kraft Heinz’s Italian baby-food business in July.
GlobalData lead analyst Aurojyoti Bose said: “More than one-third of the total number of deals advised by Morgan Stanley during 2025 were billion-dollar deals and the involvement in these big-ticket deals helped it secure the top spot. Out of the 118 billion-dollar deals, 18 were mega deals valued at or more than $10bn. Apart from leading by value, the global financial services firm also held the second position by volume with 295 deals.
“Houlihan Lokey was the top adviser by volume in 2024 and managed to retain its leadership position by this metric in 2025 as well. Moreover, the investment bank was the only adviser with more than 300 deals during the review period.”
In value terms, JPMorgan ranked second, advising on transactions worth $840.7bn.
It was followed by Goldman Sachs with $690.2bn, Evercore on $514bn and Bank of America with $485.8bn in announced deal value.
By number of deals, Morgan Stanley’s 295 transactions placed it just behind Houlihan Lokey.
JPMorgan was third by volume with 234 deals, followed by Goldman Sachs with 223 and Rothschild & Co with 171.
GlobalData’s league tables are based on the real-time tracking of thousands of sources including company websites and advisory firm websites. 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.
