U.S. M&A deal activity decreased in January, going down 0.2% with 1,086 announcements compared to 1,088 in December. However, aggregate M&A spending increased. In January 7.9% more was spent on deals compared to December.
https://go.factset.com/hubfs/mergerstat_em/monthly/US-Flashwire-Monthly…
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average deal size is concerning but this is only January performance so I don't think this is as representative.
PS: #37 is PWP too
But PWP isnt a self proclaimed BB and doesnt have anywhere close to the same number of bankers as UBS
2 years of poor performance later:
“HaVe To GiVe ThEn MoRe TiMe MeRgEr WiTh CS JuSt HaPpEnD” 🙄
Go work on the 500th pitch deck for your tech MDs as they desperately reach out to every single company in the hopes of winning their first ever deal so they do not get fired.
Single-month results basically mean nothing; DB and PWP are 37th and 39th respectively and by all accounts, DB is very much an improving franchise in the US not a declining one. UBS was around 10-20 last year and will most likely be there this year with the exact spot being dependent on the product/sector split of deal flow for the year. Banks are made up of various coverage areas; some of them at UBS are competitive others aren't. The areas with the most flow (i.e. tech) UBS is not competitive in which will massively drag down performance, but should still land it in the 10-20 range as it was last year despite last year being a very-tech heavy year.
I'm not sure how anyone takes these seriously. Nobody in the business thinks BGL is doing premier deals and above Lincoln, let alone BofA, PWP, UBS, DB, Guggenheim or Blair.
FYI - we usually find FactSet to be notoriously spotty with deal tracking and use Mergermarket instead. Here's a snip of YTD M&A league tables from there:
This isn't YTD, incorrect or worse misleading
This is 100% 25/2/2025 Global YTD M&A.
Wouldn't say FactSet is never used; definitely very commonly used mostly by banks who end up benefiting from their ranking spot relative to actual. Would agree that Mergermarket and BMG are better in terms of being accurate, all 3 are decently trusted and used. Have even seen some very rare rankings of other sources like LSEG. Leauge tables as used by banks are almost all marketing and you'll often see sub-sector-specific leauge tables as well in pitch decks. This applies for every single bank btw, have worked across the range of the BB banks.
Also that WF ranking is funny and shows how unreflectively using only the first month or so is b/c it's almost ALL a single deal (Quicktree- Summit) which was WF's landmark deal.
RIP PJT
They’ll be back
Yeah this sample size means nothing. Why not just look at LTM or CY 2024
Do these league tables account for private company transactions as well? If size of deal isn't announced how is this accounted for?
Ask Factset
Number 6 alright…
Purely a MM firm now. SAD!
Ah yes, the bank that is currently 15th YTD as per the factset screenshot has fallen off drastically in the last 2 months after basically finishing around that rank last year. Also DB at 38th is a huge travesty, had a great 2024 will be interesting to be seen if they can pick it up. Shocked by the lack of Blair, Baird, and Roths as well but just goes to show how useless looking solely at 2 months of data. Copy pasting the screenshot from above for visibility since it's hidden under replies:
Nowhere to go but up from 38 I suppose
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