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Did a quick LTM pull for global league tables - here's the results.

      Firm - Disclosed Txn Value - # of Deals

1. GS - $948.9B - 328

2. JPM - $829.0B - 340

3. MS - $710.2B - 253

4. BofA - $580.7B - 242

5. Citi - $499.4B - 186

6. Evercore - $332.0B - 169

7. CVP - $277.4B - 83

8. UBS - $217.6B - 188

9. Barclays - $216.2B - 123

10. RBC - $206.9B - 153

11. Lazard - $196.5B - 230

12. WF - $189.4B - 66

13. DB - $170.3B - 99

14. Jefferies - $158.8B - 217

15. Guggenheim - $131.5B - 82

16. BNP - $126.4B - 144

17. Rothschid - $113.0B - 322

18. Moelis - $97.6B - 115

19. PWP - $94.4B - 77

20. BMO - $93.4B - 75

21. Mizuho - $78.4B - 72

22. Qatalyst - $78.0B - 12

23. TD - $76.5B - 95

24. PJT - $65.8B - 46

25. Petrie - $65.3B - 1

26. Piper Sandler - $58.7B - 151

27. HL - $55.0B - 319

28. MTS Health Partners - $53.4B - 10

29. Mediobanca - $52.2B - 54

30. HSBC - $51.1B - 24

31. Consello - $50.9B - 2

32. Jamieson - $47.0B - 52

33. William Blair - $44.9B - 127

34. LionTree - $37.4B - 21

35. Santander - $34.7B - 60

Did a quick LTM US M&A league tables

      Firm - Disclosed Txn Value - # of Deals

1. GS - $843B - 241

2. JPM - $693B - 243

3. MS - $562B - 171

4. BofA - $483B - 161

5. Citi - $418B - 110

6. Evercore - $312B - 139

7. CVP - $263B - 69

8. WF - $189B - 66

9. RBC - $180B - 108

10. Barclays - $157B - 80

11. UBS - $147B - 93

12. Guggenheim - $131B - 80

13. Jefferies - $121B - 169

14. Lazard - $120B - 113

15. DB - $115B - 48

16. Moelis - $85B - 95

17. PWP - $83B - 57

18. Qatalyst - $77B - 11

19. BMO - $75B - 52

20. Mizuho - $72B - 46

21. BNP - $69B - 37

22. Petrie - $65B - 1

23. TD - $61B - 72

24. Piper Sandler - $57B - 130

25. PJT - $55B - 37

 

So much of the top 5's contribution is from non us deals relative to evercore(they have like 4 medium sized emea advisory offices and a small apac presence) which makes Evercores ranking ridiculously impressive. Do you guys think that taking into account deal value per head that evercore/cvp is better than gs?

 

BNP at 16 overall and 21 US seems like it's punching way above its weight.

 

Not sure why that's surprising - PJT and PWP have also had similarly strong and comparable M&A franchises. In terms of senior headcount, we have 71 non-restructuring strategic advisory partners and PWP has ~60 or so, although the numbers aren't exactly comparable as PJT has a sizable contingent of partners focused on shareholder activism and PWP strategic advisory also has some ancillary partners focused on non-M&A advisory work. Nevertheless, both M&A franchises are pretty similar in terms of size. A quick league table screen shows that both firms have tended to be around 15-30 in annual global M&A league tables, and M&A league tables for cumulative L4Y have PWP at 19th and PJT at 22nd.

Don't get me wrong, PJT's M&A franchise is strong and offers great deal experience and exits, but PWP's is just as strong and I think the popular perception among prospects tends to overrate PJT M&A and underrate PWP M&A significantly.

 

Just public perception. PWP takes more non-targets into their program so the perception reduces at the undergrad level. I don't get why this forum places PWP so low though, I always thought they were pretty strong and looking at this seems like PJT is severely overhyped on this forum.

 

Hmm that's an interesting question.

PJT RSSG no doubt adds a considerable boost to PJT M&A's reputation - prospects see PJT as the king of RX and also see their most prepared peers every year sign with PJT RSSG, and that as a whole boosts the entire firm's desirability and prestige in the eyes of prospects. PJT also tends to be more target-school heavy (especially with Wharton and Harvard), which boosts the perceived selectivity of the firm which further elevates the firm's perception among prospects. Furthermore, anecdotally I've noticed that the average prospect that comes here is far more focused on buyside recruiting than the street as a whole, and as a result PJT RSSG + M&A tends to have great placement every year, which prospects also notice.

In terms of the general M&A platform, PJT's practice has traditionally been concentrated in a few "sexy" sectors. PJT's always been a big Media + Telecom and REGAL player, and as a result PJT's gotten on a lot of those mega-deals, which also tend to be very high profile to the general public compared to, say, an Industrials or FIG deal.

On the other hand, I'd say PWP's M&A platform is much more well rounded, and PWP's built out far more comprehensive industry coverage. For example, whereas PJT's deal flow has traditionally been very Media + REGAL + some HC focused, PWP's built out great HC, Industrials, C&R, FIG, and Energy franchises (and they used to have a solid Media franchise as well). With that being said, I do think that one factor that leads to PWP's M&A franchise being more "low key" and flying under the radar is that PWP is not very present in a lot of "sexy" industries. For example, Tech has always been PWP's weakest industry coverage, PWP no longer has a media + telecom team, and PWP's HC group is nowhere to be found in biopharma/biotech, but rather is strong in the much more low-key devices and medtech verticals. Those "sexy" verticals also tend to have the highest occurrence of high-profile headliner mega-deals, thus while PWP still does very well in the large-cap space, PWP also tends to miss out on a lot of the highest profile mega deals in those growthy sectors (eg. you'll never find PWP on a Tech mega-deal and PWP is also nowhere to be found in the large-cap biotech M&A craze). Something you'll probably notice in aggregate M&A league tables and rankings is that while overall transaction value between PJT and PWP are comparable, far more of PJT's top-line txn volume number made up of those $40B+ deals whereas PWP tends to have more mid-cap and $20B deals.

 

It is interesting to see the MMs like BMO and Piper up on the league tables

 

Why do the league tables always overrate the commercial banks and underrate EBs/pure play MMs?

 

financing relationships - balance sheet banks can also get advisory credit when they are attached to a deal providing financing. For example, say on a large-cap M&A deal, the buyer may bring on GS, MS, BofA, BNP Paribas, and Wells Fargo all as advisors on paper (and they all get advisory credit), but in reality GS/MS is doing nearly all the advisory work (and receiving nearly all of the advisory fees) while BofA, BNP, WF are really just there to provide acquisition financing and get thrown advisory credit as a bone.

 

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