Wells Fargo and Barclays US M&A Volume eclipses UBS’s GLOBAL M&A Volume
Wells Fargo & Co. and Barclays Plc are quietly muscling into the upper tiers of U.S. mergers and acquisitions, eclipsing UBS Group AG, whose ambitions of becoming a global advisory powerhouse are running into familiar roadblocks.
Wells Fargo, long considered a financing shop, has steadily crept up the U.S. league tables, leveraging balance-sheet strength and marquee mandates. Barclays, meanwhile, has bulked up its U.S. presence with senior hires and a renewed push into equity and sponsor coverage, giving it greater visibility in boardrooms.
UBS, by contrast, continues to underwhelm in the one market that matters most. Despite scoring strong positions in global buyout advisory and riding the halo of its Credit Suisse acquisition, the Swiss bank has failed to translate global heft into meaningful U.S. penetration. In the first half of 2025, UBS ranked outside the top 10 in U.S. M&A revenue for most quarters, even as deal fees across Wall Street rebounded from the 2023 drought.
The shortcomings are not new. UBS has spent years promising to “scale” its American investment bank, yet the structural barriers remain: entrenched U.S. incumbents, a thin bench of rainmakers compared with bulge-bracket rivals, and a patchy record on mega-deal execution. European peers face similar challenges collectively, their share of U.S. M&A fees fell below 10% last year, but UBS’s repeated rhetoric about becoming a transatlantic player has made its underperformance more glaring.
The result: Wells Fargo and Barclays, institutions once seen as peripheral in advisory work, are now eating into the ground UBS has long claimed it could win. For UBS, that raises uncomfortable questions about whether “global scale” is meaningful when the bank remains a marginal player in the world’s most lucrative M&A market.
Really puts it into perspective
Looks like WF and Barclays have a better argument of being a BB
Since when is Barclays not a BB? Also, BB refers to banks being globally strong across various regions, and WF isn't relevant outside of America. Neither is UBS relevant in various regions; it's only really truly strong in APAC. Both UBS and WF are very clearly not BB's; there are only 6: GS, JPM, MS, BoFA, Citi, and Barclays. UBS and DB are both, however, historically BB's meaning their reputation/exits is going to be better than others non-BB/EB's.
Wf sounds way more like a BB. Who cares if UBS derives minor revenue from other regions if they aren’t even really leaders in those regions
Agree, but quite impressive to admit that WF's M&A deal flow alone in the U.S. put them in top 10 globally
Are we at the point where we're debating if Barclays is a BB? Y'all crazy
People on here are rabid. Makes sense though, given the demographics of the forum being mostly prospects who jerk themselves off and base their self-worth based on what internship offer they have or what interviews they got. Well, that and apparently a bunch of ex-banking people who are rabid after getting fired. It's not a coincidence that BoFA and UBS get shited on the most and have also recently had the most junior layoffs.
Del
They’ll turn it around by the time I become an MD
Maybe if they keep pouring tens of millions into it, but WF is also pouring tens of millions into their franchise, and WF is clearly much better at hiring people. I am sure UBS hired some good MDs solely due to how many MDs they hired (think count is 25+ total now), but it seems pretty clear that a lot of their hires were huge misses and certainily a higher miss rate than WF's hiring spree.
This is true… wells for whatever reason was much better at bringing in high quality MDs, which is the entire name of the game.
This would be interesting if it weren't the 500th post on how UBS is having a terrible 2025. It seems like no other bank gets this level of attention. There were 2 deaths last year in banking, and those banks get way less shit than UBS. WSO has become the UBS hate club.
The guy ODed
Hello, Rich Handler.
Ok but did you know that UBS is underperforming as of late
You could have slyly gotten up votes if you resisted the urge to directly mention UBS for the 1000th time
Agree
While UBS continues to struggle to translate its global aspirations into tangible U.S. traction, Wells Fargo and Barclays are stepping up in the U.S. M&A market.
What does the m&a team even do at ubs?
Wait for the coverage groups to give them potential deals
eat hot chip and lie
Half the coverage groups dont even use the m&a group anymore cause they suck.
All the coverage groups don’t really do M&A anymore, at least not at a BB level
M&A is such a fucking joke and most juniors get little to no M&A reps
The M&A group at WF isn’t good?
WF is good
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