08/01/2026

BIZ & FINANCE THURSDAY | JAN 8, 2026

17 Goldman Sachs tops M&A rankings with $1.48t in deals

NEW YORK: Goldman Sachs once again dominated the league tables for global dealmaking in 2025, taking market share and the top spot in a year marked by high-stakes political drama and increasingly bigger mergers. The rise of the US$10 billion (RM40.6 billion) deal – of which there were 68 last year totaling US$1.5 trillion, more than double the year prior – helped Goldman secure its No. 1 ranking, according to LSEG data. The firm advised on 38 of those deals, more than any other investment bank, with US$1.48 trillion in total volume of deals advised on. It was the strongest period for mega deals, by number, since LSEG records began in 1980. Calling 2025 an “exceptional M&A year”, Goldman’s Global Co-Head of M&A Stephan Feldgoise told clients “it was an extraordinary M&A market”, with activity driven by a “ubiquity of capital”, according to the investment bank’s 2026 M&A outlook. Goldman ranked No. 1 in two key areas: M&A fee revenue and overall value of the deals it worked on, gaining market share in both areas. It was paid US$4.6 billion in M&A fees, followed by JPMorgan at US$3.1 billion and Morgan Stanley at US$3 billion, Citi at US$2 billion and Evercore at US$1.7 billion, according to LSEG data. In terms of volume of deals, Goldman, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley held the first, second and third spots, respectively, followed by Bank of America and Citi. Analysts attribute some of 2025’s sales gains to President Donald Trump’s announcements early in the year of huge tariff increases. Although the president ended up striking deals that moderated levies from the threatened level of 40% or more, initial headlines led to a noticeable spring surge in sales. A similar uptick in electric vehicle sales occurred at the end of September after Trump signed legislation phasing out a tax credit. Again, consumers flocked to dealerships before the US$7,500 EV tax credit went away. Such a landscape was treacherous for car executives like Ford CEO Jim Farley, who complained in February 2025 that Trump’s tenure was producing “a lot of cost and a lot of chaos”. But by the end of year, automakers still did okay. US auto sales for all 2025 came in at 16.3 million, up about two percent from 2024, according to Edmunds.com. “A lot of the activity we had in 2025 was driven by the president’s announcements,” said Cox Automotive economist Charlie Chesbrough. Ford on Tuesday announced final sales for the year of 2.2 million, up six percent from 2024 and the best year since 2019. But with the changing of the calendar, industry insiders expect a modest pullback in 2026 sales, pointing to tepid consumer confidence and a slowing job market, partly offset by more favorable factors like lower interest rates. Cox expects “the market to be similar to (2025) but just a little bit

fees from equities and debt capital markets, raking in US$10.1 billion in overall investment banking fees to US$8.9 billion for Goldman, according to LSEG. Paramount Skydance and Netflix’s dueling bids for Warner Bros at US$108 billion and US$99 billion, including debt, helped catapult some banks, boutiques and law firms, including Wells Fargo, Moelis and Allen & Co, as well as law firm Latham and Watkins up the list for M&A. Wells, which advised on ten US$10 billion-plus deals, including Netflix’s bid for WBD, leapfrogged eight slots from 2024 to No. 9. Boutique bank Moelis, which also advised Netflix, hopped three notches ahead to finish out 2025 at No. 16. It was on five deals worth more than US$5 billion apiece, including the US$20 billion sale of Essential Utilities. Whether they stay at their current rankings could depend on who wins the Warner Bros bid. Right now, advisers for both bidders are getting credit in the rankings, but that will change once

Warner Bros chooses a winner, according to data provider LSEG. RedBird Capital Partners and M. Klein & Co., which didn’t make the top 120 last year, are contenders in the top 25 this year thanks to their work for Paramount. That is the only deal the two boutiques are getting credit for in the league tables, LSEG said, and the Warner Bros board is leaning toward rejecting Paramount’s latest offer, people familiar with the board’s thinking told Reuters previously. If Paramount withdraws its offer, Wells stands to gain two more spots in the rankings while Paramount’s M&A team would lose theirs, the data shows. Charles Ruck, the global chairman of the corporate department at LSEG’s No. 1 ranked M&A legal adviser Latham & Watkins, attributed the rising number of large deals to “size creep”. The S&P 500 rose 16.39% last year and the Nasdaq finished 20.36% higher, making deals all that more expensive this year. “The pipeline is full,” Ruck said in an interview. – Reuters Indian jewellers’ stocks shine on strong festive sales MUMBAI: Shares of Indian jewellery retailers surged after companies reported strong sales growth for the December quarter, driven by robust festive-season demand even as gold prices soared. Shares of Titan Company climbed 4.8% to hit record high of 4,307.80 rupees after the company reported a 40% jump in sales. Kalyan Jewellers and Senco Gold also jumped 3.7% and 12.2 %, respectively, after their sales update. Spot gold prices rose nearly 12% during the quarter, to close out a calendar year in which the precious metal clocked its steepest rise since 1979, driven by geopolitical uncertainties, rate cuts and robust central bank buying. “Higher prices did have an impact on volumes, but not on (overall) spending,” said Dharmesh Kant, head of equity research at Cholamandalam Securities. Kant added that jewellery companies also benefitted from higher cash in the hands of people as a result of fiscal policies like GST cuts and income tax relief, as well as low inflation. Among other companies in the sector, PC Jewellers and Thangamayil Jewellery gained 5.2% and 7.1%, respectively, while Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri surged 10.5%. Titan Company was the top percentage gainer on the benchmark Nifty 50 index, while other stocks were among top gainers in the broader indexes. CLSA said Titan’s sales growth in the third quarter was robust in the context of an exceptional rise in gold prices. – Reuters

o JPMorgan leads in global investment banking fee revenue

purchase of Norfolk Southern or the heated bidding war for Warner Bros Discovery. Bank of America, Barclays and Wells Fargo and a handful of boutique investment banks also got pieces of those two mega deals as CEOs look to scale up operations. “The strategic desire to grow and find scale is high, and that has driven boardrooms and C-suites to be more proactive. So people are not waiting for a company to be put up for sale to initiate M&A activity,” Anu Ayiengar, JPMorgan’s global head of advisory and M&A, said in an interview. JPMorgan is a leading advisor to Warner Bros in its sale and helped guide Kimberly-Clark with its US$50.6 billion purchase of Tylenol maker Kenvue, the bank’s two largest deals of the year. JPMorgan was able to beat Goldman as the highest-paid global investment bank after factoring in

For announced M&A with any involvement of Europe, Middle East and Africa, Goldman’s market share was 44.7% in 2025, a level only exceeded once before, in 1999, according to LSEG. Technology drove much of the volume last year, but dealmakers say looser regulatory scrutiny made once-prohibitive deals possible across all sectors. US President Donald Trump’s more permissive antitrust oversight gave industry titans the confidence they needed to partner up on the year’s biggest deals across railways, consumer products, media and technology. While Goldman dominated, advising on US$1.48 trillion in deals last year, which was 32% of the market, according to LSEG, it wasn’t on the top two biggest M&A transactions of the year: railway Union Pacific’s US$88.2 billion

US car market expected to moderate in 2026 NEW YORK: Auto industry experts expect US car sales to moderate in 2026 after last year’s churn of trade announcements and environmental policy changes spurred increased sales.

A 2026 Afeela prototype vehicle is displayed during CES, an annual consumer electronics trade show, in Las Vegas. – REUTERSPIC

no new models under US$20,000. The landscape is particularly difficult for first-time buyers, consigning many to the used car market, Drury said. While the cadence of tariff news has slowed in recent months, the Trump administration is set to negotiate a new version of the USMCA, a trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, later this year. Given that Detroit automakers and other car companies have established much of their supply chains around the three countries, significant tariff changes could potentially impact prices. But Drury believes car consumers will be less tuned-in to tariffs in 2026. “At some point, it becomes a bit of a white noise,” he said. – AFP

under US$35,000 less than a decade ago, according to Edmunds data. One wildcard heading into 2026 is pricing. Even with lower tariffs, automakers still face billions of dollars in added costs from the levies – but with retail prices already so high, they are reluctant to pass them on to consumers. Carmakers have opted to charge more for delivery costs, reduce incentives or strip away features that might once have been included, a step Chesbrough likens to “shrinkflation”. Ivan Drury, Edmunds’ director of insights, described deep reluctance to raise retail prices further. “The sticker shock is kind of flooring,” said Drury. He notes that there are currently

slower”, said Chesbrough, who described surveys of auto dealers as “very pessimistic”. Cox has projected 2026 sales to drop to 15.8 million, while Edmunds sees them coming in at 16.0 million. The new car market is heavily impacted by the split-screen nature of the US economy, with wealthier households strengthened by stock market records, while working-class consumers struggle with increased prices. Economists now speak of the US economy as “K-shaped” to reflect the opposite fortunes of these subsets, with new cars out of reach for lower-income shoppers. Average transaction prices for new autos approached US$50,000 for most of 2025, compared with