- Goldman Sachs retook the No. 1 global M&A spot in 2025, advising on about $1.48 trillion of announced deals and capturing over 30% market share.
- Morgan Stanley’s investment-banking rebound accelerated, with Q3 2025 revenue up about 44% year over year on stronger underwriting and trading.
- Deal value surged even as deal counts stayed below peaks, led by 68 $10B+ megadeals totaling roughly $1.5 trillion—about double 2024.
- Tailwinds include steadier rates, easing antitrust/regulatory pressure, and private-equity exits, while key risks are deal-closure execution, policy reversals, and valuation strain.
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The evidence strongly corroborates a major resurgence in dealmaking activity in 2025. According to LSEG data and multiple sources, Goldman Sachs advised on approximately $1.48 trillion of deals in 2025, leading in both deal value and advisory fees. This marks a considerable leap from 2024 and is driven primarily by a surge in megadeals—68 transactions above $10 billion compared to fewer in prior years.
Morgan Stanley also rode this wave, delivering a ~44 % increase in investment banking revenue in its Q3 2025, with strength in both M&A advisory and equity underwriting. Its revenue for the quarter hit a record ~$18.2 billion, signaling a restoration of capital markets and underwriting businesses.
Despite rising values, global deal volume in many sectors and regions remained below peak levels. According to PwC, deal counts declined globally in H1 2025 by ~9 % relative to H1 2024, even while deal values rose ~15 %. In EMEA, the dip in announced megadeals and regulatory friction contributed to declines in both volume and value.
The stabilizing macro environment—interest rates holding steady rather than rising—along with regulatory shifts, particularly in U.S. antitrust policy, appears to have removed major obstacles to large scale consolidations. Private equity firms further enlarged their exits via M&A and IPOs as delayed pipelines opened, which in turn feeds into advisory fee income for banks like Goldman and Morgan Stanley.
Strategically, Goldman’s focus on megadeals, high-value mandates, and its dominance in EMEA (~44.7 % market share there) position it well for sustained leadership. Morgan Stanley’s strength, meanwhile, comes from its blended model—wealth management cushion, capital markets revival, and balanced exposure to underwriting and advisory. But both face risks: potential policy reversals, deal execution risk especially on cross-border or regulated transactions, and managing the tail risk in AI infrastructure financing where upfront costs are high and outcomes uncertain.
Supporting Notes
- Goldman Sachs advised on $1.48 trillion of announced global M&A deals in 2025, more than any competitor.
- It participated in 38 of the 68 deals worth over $10 billion in 2025, contributing to ~$1.5 trillion in total value from these mega‐deals.
- Goldman’s M&A fee revenue in 2025 was approximately $4.6 billion, ahead of JPMorgan (~$3.1 bn) and Morgan Stanley (~$3.0 bn).
- Morgan Stanley’s Q3 2025 investment banking revenue rose ~44 % year‐over‐year to ~$2.11 billion; fixed income underwriting rose 39 % and equity underwriting ~80 %.
- Global M&A deal value increased ~15 % in H1 2025 versus H1 2024 even as overall deal volume fell ~9 %.
- Goldman achieved ~44.7 % market share for announced M&A with involvement in Europe, Middle East, and Africa in 2025—the highest since 1999.
- There were 68 megadeals valued at $10 billion or more in 2025 versus roughly half that number in 2024, indicating a return of large transactions.