Bank of America Rises as Latin America’s Top Investment Bank in Euromoney 2025

The Euromoney Awards for Excellence 2025 reveal a nuanced landscape in Latin America’s investment banking sector. Bank of America clinched the overall title of Latin America’s Best Investment Bank, founded on its cross-product strength—mergers & acquisitions (M&A), equity capital markets (ECM), and debt capital markets (DCM)—and a breadth of regional coverage that spans Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, and Peru, representing over 83% of the region’s GDP. Its 2024 results included 33 M&A transactions in nine countries, 12 ECM deals, and 44 DCM deals.

Particularly in ECM, Bank of America distinguished itself by achieving top net-revenue share in Latin America, outperforming both local and global peers. This is notable given the broad headwinds of 2024—volatile issuance windows, high interest rates, and varied country risk profiles. The bank’s strategy appears to have involved selective engagement and execution discipline.

However, in pure M&A advisory services, Euromoney placed Goldman Sachs at the top. Goldman won Latin America’s Best Investment Bank for M&A in 2025 by completing transactions exceeding $300 million in value, including the notable $6.7 billion Rio Tinto–Arcadium Lithium mining deal and others, giving it nearly 40% of regional M&A value—more than twice its closest competitor.

The divergence between ‘overall’ investment banking excellence and M&A-specific performance highlights important strategic trade-offs. Bank of America’s strength lies in depth across products and markets—not relying solely on blockbusters—but this approach may limit dominance in marquee M&A mandates, a segment Goldman decisively captured. Also relevant is the impact of economic and regulatory risk across countries, which likely penalizes firms lacking strong local networks or cross-border execution capacity.

Strategic implications for banks in Latin America include:

• Developing a balanced franchise: excelling in ECM and DCM provides more stability when M&A pipelines fluctuate.
• Building local depth: Bank of America’s presence across major economies bolsters its ability to execute in tough environments.
• Focusing on large, high-profile M&A mandates remains high reward but high risk and requires sector expertise, global reach, and scale.
• Regulatory, macroeconomic, and interest-rate risk remain central: geographic diversification and execution versatility are essential hedges.

Open questions remaining include:

• How sustainable Bank of America’s ECM and DCM lead will be as issuance windows vary with global monetary policy.
• Whether Goldman Sachs can translate its current M&A dominance into broader franchise strength (e.g., in ECM/DCM) across Latin America.
• How local/regional banks will respond—can they carve competitive niches or will global banks increasingly dominate?
• What role geopolitical and regulatory shifts in Latin America will play in deal flow and bank rankings in coming years?