2024 Q3 Prestige Tier List By Global M&A Mean/Average Deal Size
Global M&A Top 50 - Average Deal Size (US$Bn)
Q 7.91
Raine 3.56
LionTree 3.33
PJT 2.83
CVP 2.52
WF 2.43
Citi 2.39
PWP 2.33
MS 2.12
EVR 2.02
GS 1.99
JPM 1.98
Truist 1.88
Mitsubishi 1.85
Barclays 1.85
DB 1.76
CIC 1.55
HSBC 1.48
BofA 1.43
RBC 1.43
Cohen 1.04
LAZ 1.03
SocGen 1.02
BMO 0.99
UBS 0.99
JEF 0.98
BNPP 0.98
GUGG 0.98
MOE 0.97
Desjardins 0.90
TD Cowen 0.87
Macquarie 0.86
Scotia 0.83
National Bank 0.75
Mediobanca 0.71
Simutomo 0.62
UniCredit 0.52
Rothschild 0.51
Mizuho 0.48
Nomura 0.43
Natixis 0.35
Blair 0.18
RJ 0.17
Baird 0.16
Piper Sandler 0.15
PwC 0.14
HL 0.12
Stifel 0.12
KPMG 0.12
EY 0.11
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Top 50 M&A advisors by transaction value Q3 2024
Source: FactSet
I think the average deal size is the best benchmark for prestige, learning opportunities and exits, versus other metrics like league tables in transaction volume (doesn't account for size of bank or headcount) or fees per MD (only relevant for senior bankers or shareholders).
A few notes:
- Raine and LionTree seem to be top tier EBs in their own rights, arguably significantly more prestigious than the "top" mainstream EBs like CVP/PJT/EVR if looking at their specialized sectors
- Allen & Co, Dyal and other heavy hitter like M Klein, DBO did not make the top 50 this quarter due to their lumpy whale-hunting deal flow. In previous years, Allen & Co and Qatalyst usually compete for #1 in average deal size
- Jefferies has a surprisingly high average deal size despite their reputation as a bucket shop that just churns MM deals
- Foreign balance sheet banks and Canadian banks (Mitsubishi, HSBC, BMO) surprisingly have average deal sizes rivalling mid-low tier BBs
- Truist and WF are unusually high, not sure why, maybe landed a couple great deals this quarter
- MOE is low compared to their perception as a great EB for exits
- Rothschild's average deal size likely skewed downward by the amount of MM volume deals they do in EU
- CVP is lower than I remembered, in past years their average was closer to 4-5bn/deal, this may have been an inconsistent quarter for them
- MS leads GS/JPM significantly in average deal size, maybe because of GS' recent buildout of their mid-market group
WF?? Dafuq
Likely a blowout quarter for them
No its from providing financing to sponsors for the take privates.
These league tables no matter which way you cut it is only ever used for MDs trying to look good in front of a client. A 2 billion dollar sponsor to sponsor deal will not show up on the league table as no transaction terms will be announced, but Wells Fargo will get deal creds on a $5 billion dollar LBO where they were 1 of 10 banks syndicating the debt along with Nomura Mizuho and UBS.
This is undoubtedly the best metric for "prestige" (likelihood of being staffed on high-profile transactions and exit opps visibility). Would you rather be staffed on $1-2bn deals on average at GS/EVR or the sole analyst on $4-8bn deals at CVP/Q/Allen?
Exit ops do not track league tables. In fact it is incredibly backwards looking.
Also league tables are not indicative of the analyst experience. Banks Allen & Co only get on deal creds because of senior connections. The analysts (if they have any) will not have a great experience they will never be the lead advisor. Banks like WF only get on deal creds because of balance sheet. The analysts will not have a great experience as all they do is refresh debt comps.
The only deals that get announced are the ones that invovle public players, which means the sponsor to sponsor or private to sponsor deals do not get any creds no matter how big they are. A lot of high profile strategic work like stuff MKlein does for Saudi will not be on it. PJT providing advice to NFL on PE investors will not be on it. EVR/JPM/GUGG doing strategic review for Warner Bros will not be on it.
Also Q/CVP/Allen all have very different models which means very different experiences. CVP does a lot of high quality work with strategics. Q mostly does sellsides for Tech companies. Allen like I mentioned is all senior connections so they get a sliver of the economics on these mega deals.
The only people would use this league table would be the MDs when they pitch to the clients. If you want exits check linkedin.
Most of what you said is wrong, except for parts like WF getting M&A credit for financing, which is something I brought up in my post on why their avg deal size is high relative to comps like DB/UBS/RBC.
This part is especially wrong, exit opps do track league tables. Prime example - Greenhill exits are exponentially getting worse due to their dropoff in the league tables. If you only look at LinkedIn, word-of-mouth, anecdotal evidence and reputation, you would still be blindsided by GHL/LAZ's historic reputation and think they're a great place to exit, despite that not being the case in the past 2/3 years.
I agree league tables themselves are not indicative of an analyst's experience, as deal flow volume doesn't matter nearly as much as deal flow size, which is what this takes into account. You're delusional if you think there's little difference between a CVP/Q/PJT analyst holding the pen on the model of a $10bn+ transaction versus being at GS/EVR as analyst #54 on a $2bn deal.
Allen & Co are almost always the lead advisor and they do the strategic advisory/modelling on transactions. When clients bring on a BB/balance sheet bank to "co-advise" with Allen & Co, it's often for financing purposes or to use their infra/product groups.
Yes backwards looking as in ~5 years, not 15. Also GHL and Lazard still get pretty good exit despite that. Ik a GHL guy heading to APO in 2026. It appears you never worked a day in IB because GS/EVR deal teams are the same size as CVP/PJT (never worked with Q) at around 5-10 depending on deal. And analyst always hold the pen at GS/EVR. I have no idea what led you to believe that would not be the case. Maybe JPM staff 12 analysts but not GS/EVR.
I have no idea why you have such a strong opinion on this when you never even interned at a bank and all you have to go off of is deal screening tools provided by your school and WSO threads.
Right, anecdotal data with sample size n = 1 for 2026 on-cycle will surely be indicative of GHL's exits for people choosing where to go FT (and thus recruit for 2028 on-cycle).
By being "analyst #54", I didn't mean you would literally be one of 60 analysts on one deal, as funny as that would be. It means that out of all their groups (some good, some bad, some in between) and the nature of their massive institutional nature and thus headcount, you're not going to be consistently staffed on the mega-cap deals that you would be near-exclusively getting exposure to at the likes of CVP/PJT/Q/Allen.
My title obviously isn't my actual job.
APO take around 10 kids per class. One is material as it means a few more prob got interviews there. N = 1 because I only know 1 GHL analyst.
PJT do not consistenly get staffed on mega-cap deals, they absolutely will go down market like EVR but they have less headcount so it doesnt appear as much.
FYI I used to intern at a MMPE and CVP came to the bake off along with Moelis. Q only does tech sellsides which is a very different experience than a strategic buyside and a large sponsor sellside. Not all mega cap deals are created the same. Also mega cap deals are not necessarily better for PE as even MFPE are usually buying SMID cap companies. Hence they always compare themselves to Russell 2000.
Allen does not give a technical experience. Their business model is about being in the right room and know the right person.
Lastly your account was created 2 hours ago with this name, xX_SigmaRizzlerBoy_2009_Xx. Sorry this and the fact that you care about what college kids will do based on 2026 FT and 2028 oncycle screams prospect to me.
You raise good points but even Greenhill, which obviously is not the same as it used to be, still exits very well on a per capita basis. Same goes for Lazard, even though they fell behind a lot and aren't seen as true competitors to CVP/EVR/PJT
Looks like I'm getting monkey shit thrown at me by BB/mid-tier EB bros who are shocked that analysts at Q/LionTree/Raine/CVP/PJT are on average, being staffed on deals 2-3x bigger/more high profile than the ones they work on. Keep in mind although they're working on larger deals, your bank is still likely very respectable and has analyst programs that are phenomenal training grounds to learn the fundamental skillset to build a career on.
This proves UBS should now be considered MM and lose its BB status
Didn't expect them to be so below DB, but they're still BB in terms of overall transaction value
Yeah but market share is eroding
Congrats on LionTree/Raine!
Don't work at either, but by their nature as whale-hunters in their respective sectors, the median transaction analysts get staffed on there will be headline megacap deals qualitatively head and shoulder above what BB/volume shop EB analysts get exposure to.
Not a tier list as stated in the title, just a regular list, pls fix
Needed to clickbait the prestige-obsessed prospects and interns
This is a BBH post clear as day, how do yall keep falling for this lol
What's BBH?
Good luck with the exits from Q/Raine/LionTree!
All three will provide world-class opportunities within their specialization for those looking to exit.
Ye this is BS. Leauge Tables aren't particularly relevant to exits or else banks like WF/RBC would have materially better exits than DB/UBS, which are doing much worse in the Americas... this is just point blank not the case. Every year, UBS sends kids to MF PC seats and even has better PE exits than both WF/RBC. Greenhill is ranked 70 and has significantly better exits than firms like WF/RBC. Leauge tables both in terms of transaction value and this method is not reflective of how headhunters view firms and groups, and thus not reflective of exits. Headhunters determine exits and they are basically looking at things from like 10 years ago perspective, the BB's are the BB's and the EB's are the EB's from back then.
WF (in a normal year), RBC, DB and UBS have similar average deal sizes. There's also a certain amount of inertia when talking about league tables vs prestige, it takes a few years for perception to change. DB/UBS was in a much better spot 5 years ago versus RBC/WF/JEF. Give it another couple of years for on-cycle to readjust.
See what I said above. 5 years ago is a fair timeline for prestige/exits to benchmark itself rationally with league tables. League tables using the average/mean deal size is directionally very accurate when looking at prestige/learning opps/exits, with some outliers in this specific list due to only look at Q3 2024.
RBC was actually above DB in rankings starting like 5 years ago, DB has improved over the past 2-3 years as they have invested more in the IBD division, from like 2008-2020 or so DB gutted their IB division. UBS yes RBC was behind 5 years ago or even like 2023, but the DB case shows that even with better league table performance RBC cannot be held to the same standard for exits as historical BB's.
Want to note that UBS ranking is not very shocking. Some of the groups at the firm have basically no deal flow (Tech & Media and Telecom) and even the groups that do have deal flow (Industrials and FIG) are busy taking on a ton of the MM sell-sides of larger sponsors to gain brownie points or something. The UBS business model is seemingly to be a one-stop shop for sponsors and that means even the most active groups do a ton of smaller add-ons or smaller acquisitions for sponsors. Same with UBS's LevFin business which is top 4 this year for leading LBOs, but despite being pretty busy takes on the leads of much smaller deals than other firms would (including firms ranked lower). UBS numbers are also drawn down because a decent bit of deal flow stems from WM sell-sides which tend to be very small.
Anyways, it's not like UBS outside of their 2 decent coverage groups does much M&A, so it's not a completely unfair ranking just pointing out that it's more of a business strategy on their end. Ultimately, headhunters still view them as BB and if you can get into one of the good or decent groups, you should be able to get a okay exit and some deal experience. UBS remains a bottom-tier BB post-merger, but still a BB, which is still better than RBC/WF's of the world.
Only commenting this because the UBS hate squad from the tech team is here again, and honestly think it's unfair to the prospects and interns to have their shaped of the bank solely by the people who hate the firm most and are in the worst group. I am not saying the firm is elite, but it's acceptable for an analyst experience and relatively chiller compared to some other BB/EB seats, should be fine if goal is MM/UMM exits and a chill-ish experience with some deals.
Most of what you said is correct, this list essentially indicates that your chances of being staffed on large-cap quality deals at UBS are lower versus places with higher avg deal sizes despite UBS' BB status, even at one of UBS' strong groups.
RBC I would disagree with, they're a bit ahead of UBS right now in my opinion, exits will reflect this disparity within the next 5 years. WF isn't going to overtake UBS anytime soon though.
To be fair, this is the first year RBC has outperformed UBS significantly in the US, the past few years UBS was slightly better. I don't think one year is particularly telling given that UBS literally went through a major merger this year, would wait till at least 2025 full-year to make that assertion especially b/c globally UBS has outperformed RBC quite significantly in the past years outside of this one. Would agree now they are on the same tier of banks in the Americas in that amalgamation group right below the mid-tier BBs in terms of overall banks would UBS being higher for exits just given its historic reputation + inertia.
Also see above comment about the 5 years think: I disagree HEAVILY. DB has been below RBC for over 5 years in league tables and still exits better because they are a historic BB.
Hi Marco-stani drone, given a couple large deals this means the majority of deals likely sub $500mm. This is squarely middle market territory. Look at the banks they are around. Nothing wrong with being a MM firm and the fact that some teams have no deal flow doesn’t impact the average. In fact if bad teams had deal flow it would almost certainly be in the sub $1bn range and hurt the average even more
UBS so bad that it looks like they hired a comms guy to go through WSO and inflate their reputation
Lol how am I comms guy? I literally called it a non-BB firm in terms of deal flow and declining as a firm. If I were a comms person I would parrot the Marco line of "we are the best European BB" or "We will be ranked 6th in the Americas for IBD" amongst a variety of others. I am just giving my views as someone who works at the firm and am mostly ambivalent about the broader firm. Just because I don't also absolutely despise the firm I work it doesn't mean my opinions aren't invalid.
Also, I agree that a large chunk of UBS deals are MM, that's exactly what I am saying!. UBS has chosen as a firm to focus more on MM deals and take on basically anything a sponsor will give them. I am just not judging the strategy in my comments as negative or positive (up to you whether you want more deals but smaller or less deals but potentially larger), just merely pointing out what has led UBS average deal size to be low (again as implied in in my original comment, overall transaction value has also declined, 2024 has undoubtedly been a bad year for UBS).
Yeah [insert your shop] is the best shop to be at because [insert irrelevant statistic]!
Yeah UBS is the best shop to be at because they don’t let their low deal flow get in the way of a good dinner reservation!
I'm not at Q and average deal size is a very meaningful metric. What's your point here?
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