Q1 Global League Tables - WTF???
As per Factset
1. Morgan Stanley $253,682.4 68
2. JPMorgan Chase & Co 231,067.1 77
3. Goldman Sachs & Co. 227,154.5 81
4. Citigroup 148,761.1 48
5. UBS Group AG 94,387.8 40
6. Barclays Plc 93,178.0 22
7. BofA Securities 87,248.4 43
8. Centerview Partners LLC 81,286.3 26
9. Wells Fargo & Co. 67,886.3 8
10. Lazard 66,673.7 25
11. Jefferies LLC 53,582.9 47
12. Evercore, Inc. 50,710.1 32
13. Rothschild & Co 36,896.1 68
14. Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. 29,322.1 27
15. Deutsche Bank AG 25,291.2 21
16. PJT Partners, Inc. 21,503.8 9
17. Ernst & Young Global Ltd. 20,118.0 77
18. The Toronto-Dominion Bank 18,161.8 13
19. BMO Capital Markets Corp 16,124.1 10
20. BNP Paribas SA 15,785.9 14
21. Scotiabank 15,633.9 8
22. RBC Capital Markets 15,572.5 25
23. Crédit Agricole 14,905.8 3
25. Banco Santander SA 13,680.9 15
26. Moelis & Co. 13,556.4 22
27. Mediobanca SpA 10,235.3 15
28. KPMG International Coop. 9,568.3 48
29. Perella Weinberg Partners 9,294.7 9
30. National Bank of Canada 9,196.8 6
31. Guggenheim Capital LLC 8,331.9 15
32. Deloitte LLP 7,832.3 36
33. Natixis SA 7,530.3 18
34. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. 7,471.3 14
35. Canaccord Genuity Group, Inc. 7,243.4 28
36. DNB Bank ASA 7,111.6 9
37. Macquarie Group 6,728.0 12
38. CIBC Capital Markets, Inc. 6,670.8 3
39. Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities 6,625.2 7
40. ING Groep NV 6,610.3 7
41. The Raine Group LLC 6,587.5 3
42. Gresham Partners Ltd. 6,152.8 4
43. BDT & MSD Partners LLC 6,100.0 2
44. Jordan Park Group LLC 6,100.0 1
45. Piper Sandler Cos. 6,037.7 28
46. Houlihan Lokey, Inc. 5,582.6 59
47. Daiwa / DC Advisory 5,499.4 32
48. Kirk Lovegrove & Co. Ltd. 5,456.5 1
49. SEB 5,445.5 6
50. Erneholm Haskel AB 5,432.4 1
Key takeaways:
Yep let's completely restructure 20+ year historical bank rankings based on a quarter of fees.
Edit: why is this being MS'd it was obvious sarcasm
stupid post but congrats on DB
Congrats on Lehman Brothers! It was a top-five bank in the 2007 rankings.
Well I don’t think it makes sense to redefine BB and EB based on one quarter result. But even if you were to do so, I don’t follow your logic. BofA is at #7 and is not a BB anymore.. but WF and DB at #9 and #15 is now classified as a BB?? All great banks but I really don’t get your logic…
BofA is a BB lol what are you talking about, one of the biggest banks
Of course BofA is a BB. The post says BofA is no longer a BB, I was disagreeing.
I was trying to respond to the OP my bad hahah
Is your IQ two digits?
BofA at 7, not a BB. Deutsche Bank at 15, now a BB.
What a website
This kind of takeaway reminds me of the work I used to get from my bottom bucket 1Y analysts
Maybe this guy is your bottom bucket 1Y analyst
There are only 6 BBs: GS/JPM/MS/BoFA/Citi/Barclays. The only ones even close to that status are Jef/UBS (not WF simply due to lack of other regions that are strong except NA). DB is so far away from those two, it's a bit insulting to put them in the same tier in the year 2025. Each of the 3 I mentioned, I think, has some kind of argument by league tables, but simply aren't truly global and/or strong in every region.
False UBS doesn't even really do all the products; it's non-existent in the DCM market and doesn't do very well in the ECM market. UBS is a LevFin bank for sponsors that also sometimes does M&A for sponsors... the vast majority of UBS groups, at least in the US, solely do sponsors work, and maybe only like 3-4 coverage teams do any M&A deals not involving sponsors. Hard to call it a true BB at this stage. Is it a bank right below the actual BBs or competitive with the actual BBs in certain sectors/regions? Yes, but it isn't truly a BB or close to it.
RBC is debatably Citi/Barc tier nowadays.
It truly isn't. As much as I shit on UBS on this forum, UBS is clearly stronger than RBC in the World and even in the US. RBC had a really bad quarter as well, and its growth has overall slowed down; the higher rate of growth came from the ~2009-2021 span or so. It has established itself as right below Jef/UBS/WF in the US and nowhere near a BB in the global context. A 11th-15th ranked bank in the league tables in its best region (btw heavily inflated by commercial relationship-based deals, which RBC for some reason never gets called out for but WF does every time it's brought up) doesn't compare to any extent to Citi/Barc.
RBC? #22 behind Scotiabank?
No, all RBC has is Canada and 2-3 solid industry groups in the US which punch above their weight. The rest of their IB presence globally is tiny . There;s nothing in LatAm, their offices in APAC are tiny and their London is a complete joke which competes for shitty LMM deals.
Although Citi and BARC both have serious issues, they have a solid presence everywhere, even if they aren't always competing against GS/MS/JPM.
Is WF a BB in the U.S.?
UBS top 5 #noticing
It’s always been top 5 in toxicity
Just got lucky to be a 5th bank on a large deal or two, very different if you look at fees
Always wondered why deal value is the more common league table metric. Seems like fees would make more sense as it implicitly accounts for being a lead advisor vs barely doing anything on a deal with seven banks for a 600k fee.
No SMBC?
if ur bank isnt even top 50 its not relevant
Citigroup were top 4 in 2024 too. Performing very well as of late
citi has always been a top 4 BB not rlly a surprise
EY is a BB confirmed
The takeaways are dumb but directionally correct.
WF seems likely to be doing plenty of huge deals in the U.S. this year and has improved from last year, do you know what's happening?
Yeah they’ve hired a bunch of BofA ppl for one
They’re paying top dollar to bring in quality talent. They took advantage of market timing and some of the banks paying peanuts the past few years, yes BofA was one of them.
WF was also in shambles after the 2018 corporate account scandal. The asset cap was put in place, and understandably a lot of top talent left the investment bank the last few years. The cap is expected to be lifted this year, and the bank is currently understaffed and looking to build to utilize asset growth.
The talent they brought in is performing well and winning a lot of big deals. They will never be at the same level as GS, JP, MS but with all the issues at BofA, citi, UBS, Barclays, the bank is taking advantage and winning share from those competitors (and poaching talent away from them).
There’s going to be a dogfight amongst the mid tier BBs the next few years, curious to see where they all end up.
Deal value IMO is a horrible metric. Fees are much more of a relevant indicator
When you do it by value, if you have a $20Bn deal and three advisors (on same side) they all get $20Bn of credit towards this league table. In reality GS probably led it and got paid $30M and the other two banks maybe did a fairness opinion or were a secondary advisor and got substantially less.
As an another example I did a $5bn deal once (sellside) and RBC was named as a buyside M&A advisor in the press release. Never interacted with them a single time, they asked no questions, didn't go to any MPs or DD sessions - yet wound up with the same credit on a list like this. There are many banks on this list that probably get credit the same way.
Spot on, to add on to this on the sponsor side (MF) we have a relationship to maintain.
As an example say during our investment period (5 years) - you had JPM, UBS, WF support us through the RCF, levfin, etc.. We're able to cram through good pricing / OID and now its time to 'pay up' during the big sell (say its a $5bn asset coming to market). Of course all 3 banks are going to want to be sell-side M&A. In reality only two are going to do any work (likely just 1 - in which this case the firm will want to go with JPM) but you have to maintain your relationship with UBS/WF for other leverage situations down the line.
To address this dynamic, you'll award all three banks sell-side credit equally in league tables but JPM will be taking the lion share worth of the fees
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