Last year, Rothschild & Co advised on a higher volume of M&A transactions than any of its European rivals, with its $220 billion of completed deals putting it comfortably ahead of Barclays on $207 billion, Lazard's $185 billion, BNP Paribas' $178 billion and Deutsche Bank's $145 billion.
And while the US bulge-bracket firms top the volume rankings in western European M&A, looking at the numbers of deals tracked by Dealogic tells a different story.
Rothschild advised on 297 transactions, far ahead of Goldman, which advised on 161, JPMorgan on 160 and Morgan Stanley 102.
The firm has more advisory bankers, around 900 spread across western Europe in 15 offices, than any rival. It is western Europe’s best bank for advisory.
In a year when volumes fell precipitously and many firms that had hired for the boom conditions of the second half of 2020 and 2021 announced widespread redundancies, Rothschild’s focus on large numbers of bread-and-butter deals, as well as the big strategic transactions, served it well.