Goldman Sachs loses top M&A ranking for first time in five years

afr.com:

Goldman Sachs Group has lost its ranking as the world’s top mergers and acquisitions adviser for the first time in five years.

JPMorgan Chase & Co has taken its spot as the No. 1 M&A adviser globally so far this year, with credit on $US284 billion ($429 billion) of deals translating into a 22.5 per cent market share, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Goldman fell to the second spot, with a role on $US237 billion of transactions giving it an 18.8 per cent market share.

Goldman could still climb its way back to the top ranking by the end of December, as it’s done in the past. Bloomberg

The last time Goldman ranked second for any half-year period was in the first half of 2018, the data show.

Global deal volumes have fallen 42 per cent this year to $US1.3 trillion in one of the worst periods for M&A in the last decade. Banks that ramped up hiring in 2020 and 2021 amid a surge in dealmaking are now grappling with sharp declines in fees.

That’s triggered major headcount reductions across Wall Street, with Goldman recently starting job cuts that will see 125 managing directors across different parts of the bank lose their jobs, Bloomberg News reported this month. The moves are part of a deep cost-savings drive at the bank, which has seen at least three rounds of job cuts in less than a year.

Valeriya Vitkova, a senior lecturer at City University of London’s Bayes Business School, said there have been fewer mega-deals, which can impact league tables.

“We have seen a structural shift in the type of M&A deals that get announced,” Ms Vitkova said. “It would be interesting and important to see whether this is a sustained drop over the coming months and years or whether this is just a temporary shift.”

Given the sharp decline