Top Investment Banks Driving Private Equity and M&A Innovation in 2025

Private equity professionals don’t need another rundown of who’s on the top league tables. That list hasn’t changed much. What they need is clarity on why certain investment banks are still winning high-impact mandates in an era defined by rising interest rates, regulatory scrutiny, and heightened LP pressure. The days when brand alone could secure an exclusive sell-side engagement are fading. In 2025, the firms that thrive are those leaning into innovation, offering differentiated advisory, and proving they can move the needle—not just recycle old playbooks.

The structural dynamics of dealmaking have shifted. Whether it’s navigating tighter credit markets, managing geopolitical uncertainty, or structuring GP-led secondaries, top-tier banks must do more than just “connect capital.” They need to unlock alpha through sector expertise, technology enablement, and global-local balance. This piece takes a closer look at how the leading investment banks are adapting—and in some cases, setting the tone—for a new era in PE and M&A advisory.

Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan: Steering Global M&A Strategy with Scale and Speed

When deal velocity slows, power players double down. Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan haven’t just maintained their position at the top of the M&A food chain—they’ve expanded their grip by investing aggressively in sector coverage, tech infrastructure, and cross-border execution.

Both banks have scaled dedicated sponsor coverage units, increasingly focused on growth equity deals, structured minority investments, and continuation funds. Goldman’s One Goldman Sachs initiative—integrating investment banking, asset management, and alternatives under one strategic umbrella—has proven to be more than marketing fluff. It allows the bank to bundle advisory with co-investment, offering PE firms a full-stack service when navigating exits or capital recycling.

JPMorgan, meanwhile, has prioritized speed. Their proprietary deal execution platform—quietly launched in late 2023—has shaved weeks off of due diligence timelines for PE clients, particularly in competitive auctions. The firm’s internal data shows that its average time-to-term-sheet in mid-cap tech M&A has decreased by nearly 18%, giving its clients a competitive edge when speed is the differentiator.

Both banks are also active on the global regulatory front. Goldman’s teams in London and Frankfurt have worked closely with EU regulators on digital sovereignty mandates, while JPMorgan has doubled its MENA presence, betting on Saudi-led privatizations and UAE sovereign co-investment platforms. Their global scale no longer just translates to bigger deal flow—it allows for deeper local insights that can de-risk complex transactions.

What sets them apart in 2025 isn’t just size. It’s their willingness to move beyond vanilla buyouts. Both firms have advised on novel transactions such as NAV loans, hybrid GP-leds, and structured minority recapitalizations—structures that are gaining traction in a constrained fundraising environment.

And while some bulge bracket firms have retrenched, Goldman and JPMorgan continue to hire. Their 2024 class of PE-focused MDs included talent pulled from top buy-side firms, further blurring the advisory-investor divide. That kind of lateral thinking is exactly what keeps them at the forefront of PE innovation.

Boutique Investment Banks Redefining Sector Specialization in Private Equity

The notion that only bulge bracket banks can handle complex private equity deals no longer holds. In 2025, the smartest capital allocators increasingly gravitate toward boutiques that bring deep sector knowledge and unfiltered access. Evercore, Houlihan Lokey, and PJT Partners are not just holding their own against the giants—they’re pulling ahead in mandates where specialization and trust matter more than global headcount.

Evercore has doubled down on healthcare, energy, and industrials—areas where traditional playbooks often fail.

What gives them an edge isn’t just technical rigor—it’s that their MDs speak the language of operators. As one PE partner at Advent put it, “Evercore shows up with industry guys, not just deal guys. That makes the difference when we’re carving out a non-core pharma asset or evaluating operational upside.”

Houlihan Lokey has turned distressed and restructuring into a competitive advantage. While many banks still treat these as niche verticals, Houlihan sees them as recurring needs. Their special situations group has led mandates in consumer retail, lower mid-market industrials, and healthcare roll-ups, where PE firms are buying cheap but complex assets.

Then there’s PJT Partners. With a relatively lean team, PJT has become the go-to advisor for continuation fund structuring and GP-led secondaries. In a market where LP liquidity is tight and fundraising timelines have stretched, this niche has gone mainstream. PJT’s secondaries team closed $15.2 billion in GP-led transactions last year—many of them involving multi-asset vehicles and complex waterfall resets.

What unites these boutiques is agility. Unlike the big banks, they can pivot quickly, offer partner-led service, and tap into deep sponsor relationships. They also aren’t bound by balance sheet constraints, which gives them flexibility in working with both large-cap and middle-market sponsors.

Their rise isn’t an anomaly. It’s a reflection of where private equity is heading: toward specialization, bespoke solutions, and trusted long-term advisors. For many PE dealmakers in 2025, calling a boutique first isn’t a fallback plan—it’s the smartest move.

Tech-Forward Investment Banking: How Digitization Is Reshaping M&A Execution

Banks that once ran on spreadsheets and relationship dinners are now racing to differentiate through proprietary platforms and AI-enhanced deal sourcing. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan are leading this digital arms race, not simply by investing in fintech startups—but by transforming their own workflows. Goldman’s Marquee platform is no longer just a client dashboard; it’s a signal that modern dealmakers expect tech-enabled precision and real-time analytics.

Digitization in M&A goes far beyond efficiency gains. At JPMorgan, internal machine learning models assess acquisition targets across dozens of variables—deal synergies, ESG risk flags, capital stack alignment—before a human team ever steps in. Morgan Stanley’s investment in AI for sentiment analysis is similarly reshaping pre-deal positioning. These banks aren’t outsourcing innovation; they’re baking it into the process.

Private equity clients have noticed. Funds like Silver Lake and Vista Equity now prefer bankers who bring differentiated analytics to the table, not just sector contacts. According to Bain & Company, 57% of GPs surveyed in 2024 cited “tech-enabled diligence” as a key factor in selecting M&A advisors—up from just 34% in 2021.

This shift is also widening the gap between banks. Tier-one firms are investing hundreds of millions in custom tooling, while mid-market players often rely on third-party platforms like DealCloud or PitchBook. The resulting disparity isn’t just technical—it’s strategic. Top-tier clients increasingly view digital fluency as a proxy for sharper thinking and faster execution.

That said, the tech race isn’t without misfires. Some firms have overbuilt internal tools that never gained traction with bankers or clients. Others rely too heavily on dashboards, underestimating the art of narrative building in M&A pitches. But for those striking the right balance, digitization isn’t just a back-office upgrade—it’s become a frontline differentiator.

Sector Specialization and Vertical Banking: Carving Out Niches in Competitive Mandates

If there’s one lesson from the last cycle, it’s that generalist advisory no longer wins premium mandates. The banks that now dominate mid-cap and upper-mid M&A are those who’ve doubled down on vertical depth. Think William Blair in healthcare IT, Qatalyst in software, or Harris Williams in industrial tech—firms that know the sub-sector, not just the comps.

Specialization builds trust. In verticals like life sciences or fintech infrastructure, founders and PE firms want advisors who already understand the regulatory headwinds, buyer ecosystems, and valuation levers unique to their niche. A banker who can say, “We just ran a similar sell-side for a B2B payments processor—here’s what worked,” gets the mandate.

Consider Houlihan Lokey’s aggressive push into aerospace and defense. Rather than compete broadly in industrials, the firm has quietly built out a team that knows how to navigate ITAR compliance, DOD procurement cycles, and consolidation trends in defense tech. That depth pays off in mandates—especially in cross-border transactions where domain fluency reduces friction.

The move toward specialization isn’t limited to boutique players. Barclays, for instance, has bolstered its consumer and e-commerce practice, leveraging deep ties in growth-stage apparel and beauty to win repeat mandates from VC-backed and PE-rolled platforms. This strategy has also led to differentiated insights—like tracking TikTok-driven demand spikes before they’re reflected in financials.

This niche orientation is also reshaping banker career paths. Top junior and mid-level talent now often eschews generalist rotations in favor of getting deep in one vertical early. The value proposition is clear: subject-matter expertise commands higher fees, builds better relationships, and creates competitive moats in a crowded advisory market.

Still, there are limits. Over-indexing on one vertical can leave firms exposed to sector-specific downturns or regulatory shocks. The smartest banks are hedging this by combining deep sector pods with broader cross-sell capabilities across adjacencies—software into tech-enabled services, aerospace into industrial automation, and so on.