JP Morgan tops investment banking for 8th straight year

3 min read
Americas, EMEA, Asia
Steve Slater

JP Morgan kept its top spot for investment banking fees for the eighth year in a row in 2016, grabbing market share at the expense of rivals including Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank.

New York-based JP Morgan took in US$5.8bn in fees from completed M&A advisory, capital markets underwriting and syndicated lending last year, down 5% from 2015, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Its market share rose to 6.8% in 2016 from 6.6%, widening its gap over nearest rival Goldman Sachs, whose revenues fell 15% to US$5.1bn, representing a market share of 6%.

Overall fees for M&A advisory, equity and debt capital markets and syndicated lending were US$85bn last year, down 7% from US$91.5bn in 2015, according to the data.

Other banks to show decent gains in market share included Barclays, Mizuho, Lazard and Rothschild.

Banks showing the steepest falls in revenue included Goldman, BAML, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and UBS, the data show.

The big five US banks retained the top five rankings for M&A, underwriting and syndicated loans. But the five firms’ combined market share of 28% was down from 29.5%, indicating they are not grabbing market share from all European rivals.

The US banks remain dominant in their domestic market, however, and took a combined 36.8% share of fees in the Americas, including a 9.4% share for JP Morgan.

Fees in the Americas totaled US$44.9bn, down 10% from 2015 but still representing 53% of the global fee pool.

Fees in EMEA fell 11% to US$20.4bn, fees in Japan fell 7% to US$3.6bn, but fees in the rest of Asia-Pacific rose 10% to US$16.1bn.

JP Morgan brought in the highest fees in EMEA, where it had a 5.5% market share. In Asia-Pacific, Morgan Stanley topped the rankings with a 4.6% share of the market.

BARCLAYS LEAPFROGS DEUTSCHE

Barclays replaced Deutsche Bank in sixth spot for global fees with a market share of 3.8%, up from 3.6% in 2015.

Deutsche fell to eighth as its fees tumbled 20% and its market share fell to 3.2% from 3.8% during the year.

Deutsche had a grim 2016, as Chief Executive John Cryan tries to restructure the bank and tackle concerns about its capital strength, regulatory fines and lacklustre profits in its German retail bank, while trying to cut costs.

Credit Suisse, which also went through substantial restructuring under CEO Tidjane Thiam, ranked in seventh for global fees after an 8% drop in revenues.

Its rival UBS saw a steeper 18% fall in fees and slipped outside the top 10 to 11th in global rankings.

Picking up some of that business was Japan’s Mizuho, where fee revenues rose 12% to lift it to 13th.

Boutique advisory and restructuring firms Lazard and Rothschild rose to 15th and 17th in the rankings, respectively, as both saw a 23bp rise in market share.

Fees from debt capital markets underwriting rose 6% to US$24.8bn from 2015, according to the data.

Equity capital markets fees tumbled 23% from the year earlier to US$15.5bn, led by a 30% drop in IPO fees.

M&A advisory fees totaled US26.8bn last year, down 3% from 2015, while fees from syndicated loans fell 12% to US$18bn.

JP Morgan