The Phoenix Search monthly briefing on the deals, senior leadership moves and market trends shaping investment banking in Ireland, the UK, Europe and the US.
October was the month the banks reported their third quarters. Fee lines diverged, strategic buyers announced several of the year’s larger deals, and the US IPO market had one of its quietest months of 2026.
The month in numbers
Data published in October:
- Global M&A reached about $3.9tn in the first nine months of 2026, up 28% and the highest for the period since 2001, while deal numbers fell 8% (LSEG, via Reuters, 1 October).
- EMEA M&A reached $1.15tn in the nine months, up 51%, with 18 megadeals worth $368.7bn (Mergermarket).
- 836 IPOs raised $227.3bn globally in the first nine months, with European proceeds up more than 25% (PwC IPO Watch, 6 October).
- In October itself, eight US IPOs and one direct listing raised about $1.2bn, against a ten-year October average of 22 IPOs and $5.1bn (Renaissance Capital).
Third-quarter investment banking results, reported in October, year on year:
- Goldman Sachs: investment banking fees $3.22bn, up 21%; advisory $1.65bn, up 18%.
- JPMorgan: investment banking fees $2.96bn, up 13%.
- Citi: investment banking revenue $1.35bn, up 9%.
- Morgan Stanley: investment banking revenue $2.16bn, up 2%.
- Bank of America: investment banking fees $1.80bn, down 10.6%.
- UBS: global banking revenue $692m, down by a third, with advisory fees down 44% to $181m.
- Lazard: Financial Advisory adjusted net revenue $465m, up 10%.
- Evercore: advisory fees $1.01bn, up 14%.
Financial News put third-quarter investment banking fees at the top five Wall Street banks at $11.5bn, up 7% year on year, after a 48% rise in the second quarter.
The deals
- 5 October: Schneider Electric agreed to acquire PTC for about $22.6bn in cash. Morgan Stanley is lead financial adviser to Schneider and Evercore advises PTC. On 19 October Schneider launched a capital increase of about €6bn to help fund the deal.
- 7 October: Wittington Investments, partnering with Fairfax Financial, agreed a £6.7bn deal for Boots’ 1,800 stores across the UK and Ireland, together with Boots Opticians and No7 Beauty Company. Completion is expected in Q1 2027.
- 22 October: LSEG agreed to acquire Octus from funds advised by Permira and Octus management for $3.535bn in cash.
- 28 October: GE Vernova agreed to acquire Trench Group from Triton for $9bn.
- 29 October: DoorDash agreed to acquire Instacart for about $17bn, or $65 per share.
Among the advisers themselves, Natixis agreed to buy Tokyo M&A adviser Sangyo Sosei Advisory (reported), and Lazard completed its acquisition of Campbell Lutyens on 2 November, launching Lazard CL.
Senior moves
| Name | New role | Firm | Joined from |
|---|---|---|---|
| David Krap | Managing Director, Co-Head of European Consumer, Retail & Leisure | Lazard | J.P. Morgan |
| Alexander Friedman | Managing Director, Media, Entertainment & Sports | Lazard | Guggenheim Partners |
| Pablo Hernandez Schmidt-Tophoff | Managing Director, Head of Energy Services & Decarbonization, North America | Rothschild & Co | Lazard |
| John Song and Jean Stack | Senior Managing Directors, Aerospace & Defense | Evercore | Baird |
| John Vaske | Senior Managing Director, Chemicals | Evercore | Ducera Partners |
| Hamish Summerfield | Partner, Financial Services | Perella Weinberg | Citi |
| Jane Ma | Managing Director, Financial Services Group | Houlihan Lokey | Moelis |
| Derek Herbert | Managing Director, Equity Capital Solutions | Houlihan Lokey | Stifel |
| Govind Shanbogue | Managing Director, UK M&A advisory | BNP Paribas | Santander |
| Sandip Dhillon | Managing Director, UK M&A advisory | BNP Paribas | UBS |
At the top of the firms, Evercore named Nigel Dawn and Naveen Nataraj as co-presidents from 1 January 2027, with John Weinberg remaining chairman and CEO. Lazard appointed Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, former chairman of Société Générale, as a senior advisor for Europe, and Evercore appointed former Verizon chairman and CEO Hans Vestberg as a senior advisor.
Trend of the month: fewer deals, larger deals
Deal numbers are down on last year while deal values are up. LSEG counted 8% fewer deals in the first nine months, while value rose 28%. Megadeals carry much of the weight: WTW, using LSEG data, counted 24 completed deals above $10bn in the first nine months, a record for the period.
October’s results showed how unevenly that flows through to fees. Advisory revenue rose 18% at Goldman Sachs, 14% at Evercore and 10% at Lazard, and fell 44% at UBS and 19% at Bank of America.
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Ed Rossiter, Founder & Group CEO, Phoenix Search
Sources: LSEG (via Reuters and Investment Executive), Mergermarket, PwC IPO Watch, Renaissance Capital, WTW, Financial News, Bloomberg, Sky News, and company announcements and filings from Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Citi, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, UBS, Lazard, Evercore, Houlihan Lokey, Perella Weinberg, Rothschild & Co, Schneider Electric, LSEG, GE Vernova and DoorDash. Reported items had not been confirmed by the companies involved at the time of writing.
