Citi and Rothschild & Co were the top mergers and acquisitions (M&A) financial advisers in Europe for Q1 2021 by value and volume, respectively. Citi advised on 14 deals worth US$59.5bn, which was the highest value among all the advisers. Meanwhile, Rothschild & Co led in volume terms having advised on 48 deals worth US$11.3bn. A total of 2,760 M&A deals were announced in the region during Q1 2021, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

GlobalData’s report, ‘Global and Europe M&A Report Financial Adviser League Tables Q1 2021’, reveals that deal value increased by 6.1% from US$230bn in Q1 2020 to US$244bn in Q1 2021 in the region.

Aurojyoti Bose, Lead Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Rothschild & Co held the top spot in terms of deal volume but lagged behind many of its peers in terms of deal value. Surprisingly, it also did not feature among the top 10 advisors by value.

“Meanwhile, Citi, which advised on much lesser number of deals and did not even feature among the top 10 advisors by volume, managed to top the list by value due to the involvement in big ticket deals. The firm advised on seven billion-dollar deals (deals worth greater than or equal to US$1bn), which also included two megadeals valued more than US$10bn.”

JP Morgan occupied the second position in terms of value with 29 deals worth US$52.4bn followed by Morgan Stanley with 14 deals worth US$50.2bn and Goldman Sachs with 23 deals worth US$41.7bn.

PwC occupied the second position by volume with 44 deals worth US$12.1bn followed by KPMG with 43 deals worth US$8.5bn and Ernst & Young with 43 deals worth US$2.4bn.