Morgan Stanley and Houlihan Lokey lead in consumer M&A advisor rankings

In the realm of financial advisors, Morgan Stanley and Houlihan Lokey emerged as the top players in consumer M&A in 2025, according to recently disclosed deals data.

Morgan Stanley took the lead in terms of the value of deals, with the cumulative value of their advised deals amounting to $79.71 billion. On the other hand, Houlihan Lokey was instrumental in 30 consumer-sector transactions.

Lead analyst at GlobalData, Aurojyoti Bose, noted that Houlihan Lokey maintained its standing as the top advisor in terms of deal volume for two consecutive years, from 2024 to 2025. Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley, despite advising on a smaller number of deals, stood out not only in deal value but also in surpassing its peers by a substantial margin. Of the nine deals overseen by Morgan Stanley in 2025, four were billion-dollar transactions, including two mega-deals exceeding $10 billion. This involvement in high-value deals propelled Morgan Stanley to the top of the chart in terms of deal value.

In August, Morgan Stanley secured a pivotal role in Keurig Dr Pepper’s acquisition of Dutch coffee company JDE Peet’s for €15.7 billion ($18.36 billion). Subsequently, they helped in the division of the combined business into two entities.

Houlihan Lokey was primarily engaged in the food sector, as exemplified by Kraft Heinz’s sale of assets in Italy to NewPrinces in July. On the other hand, when considering deal value, Goldman Sachs secured the second spot with $65.13 billion worth of transactions. JPMorgan closely followed, contributing to 11 deals totaling $57.3 billion, with Centerview Partners and PJT Partners following suit with $56.11 billion and $48.7 billion worth of transactions, respectively.

In terms of deal volume, Rothschild & Co. occupied the second spot after working on 20 deals, followed by Spayne Lindsay with 17 deals, and Goldman Sachs with 16 deals. Lazard and Deloitte both worked on 15 deals each, rounding out the list of top advisors in the consumer M&A sector.

GlobalData’s ranking is sourced from a comprehensive monitoring of numerous outlets, including company and advisory firm websites. A proficient team of analysts meticulously aggregates data from these sources to gain elaborate insights into each deal, including the names of the advisors. Moreover, to ensure data validity, the company actively accepts submissions of deals from leading advisors.