Keep reading
Blog/Investment Banking
The top leveraged finance banks are JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and BofA Securities. On Dealogic’s full-year 2025 rankings, the three earned 27% of all leveraged finance revenue between them, and JPMorgan ranked first in both 2024 and 2025.
If you are pitching for a mandate or choosing a team, the ranking shows which banks lead the debt on large buyouts and which LevFin teams see the most sponsor deal flow.
This article covers the 2025 top 10, the leaders in Europe, how to read LevFin league tables, and what private credit is doing to the banks.
Leveraged finance (LevFin) is the business of arranging sub-investment grade debt: leveraged loans and high-yield bonds used for buyouts, acquisitions, refinancings and dividend recaps. The fairest single ranking is fee revenue, because it shows who leads deals rather than who joins them.
Dealogic’s All LevFin Revenue by Bank table for full-year 2025 ranks the banks as follows:
| Rank | Bank | 2025 LevFin revenue | Share | 2024 rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | JPMorgan | $1,373m | 10.7% | 1 |
| 2 | Goldman Sachs | $1,057m | 8.3% | 2 |
| 3 | BofA Securities | $1,031m | 8.0% | 3 |
| 4 | Morgan Stanley | $791m | 6.2% | 5 |
| 5 | Barclays | $750m | 5.9% | 4 |
| 6 | Citi | $680m | 5.3% | 9 |
| 7 | Wells Fargo | $646m | 5.0% | 7 |
| 8 | Deutsche Bank | $527m | 4.1% | 6 |
| 9 | RBC Capital Markets | $407m | 3.2% | 8 |
| 10 | BNP Paribas | $388m | 3.0% | 12 |
The total LevFin fee pool in the Dealogic table was $12,812m. The top three earned a little over a quarter of it:
The biggest movers were Citi, up from ninth to sixth, and BNP Paribas, which entered the top 10 from 12th. Deutsche Bank slipped from sixth to eighth.
JPMorgan has kept its lead into 2026. ION Analytics’ first-quarter 2026 rankings show JPMorgan leading US LevFin revenue and BNP Paribas leading Europe.
JPMorgan’s position rests on large underwrites, the core of the role investment banks play in LBOs. IFR named it Leveraged Finance House of the Year for 2025, citing the $20bn loan behind the $55bn buyout of Electronic Arts. IFR called it the largest LBO and the biggest committed LBO financing on record.
IFR also credited JPMorgan with:
In Europe, BNP Paribas leads, and French and Italian banks rank higher than they do globally. US houses take most of the remaining top 10 places.
The closest European measure is Dealogic’s 2025 table for EMEA bank-led acquisition loan revenue, a $479m fee pool. BNP Paribas ranked first with $47m and a 9.8% share. JPMorgan was second with $39m. Citi, UniCredit, Goldman Sachs, BofA Securities, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, HSBC and SG CIB complete the top 10.
White & Case, using Debtwire data, puts 2025 European leveraged loan issuance for buyouts at €29.3bn, down from €32.1bn in 2024. Private credit deployed €84.9bn into European buyouts in the first nine months of 2025 alone.
The most common mistake is using a syndicated loan volume table to judge LevFin strength. Those tables cover all syndicated loans, including investment grade revolving credit facilities, which carry large volumes and thin fees.
Mizuho, MUFG and Sumitomo Mitsui all sit in Dealogic’s 2025 global syndicated loans top 10. None of them appears in the LevFin revenue top 10.
Use these three tables instead, in this order:
Two further points apply. Volume tables share credit across every bookrunner on a deal, so a bank can rank well by joining many deals without leading them. And repricings inflate volume in strong markets.
William Blair, using PitchBook LCD data, shows the scale of that effect. US leveraged loan volume passed $1.0tn in 2025 including repricings and extensions, but new-money institutional issuance was $439.1bn.
Balance sheet is the main advantage in LevFin. A sponsor buying a company needs committed financing at signing, so the bank must underwrite the debt and carry the risk until it sells the loan or bond to investors.
Mergers & Inquisitions names JPMorgan and Bank of America as among the strongest US LevFin banks for this reason. Banks with strong balance sheets can take on more risk for clients.
Three things decide who wins a mandate:
That is why the LevFin revenue table looks like a list of the largest balance sheet banks. Advisory-only firms do not lend, so they cannot underwrite the financing. Our comparison of bulge bracket and elite boutique banks covers that split in more detail.
Banks now compete with direct lenders for the same buyouts, and our guide to private credit vs bank loans sets out how the terms differ. PitchBook LCD reports that US direct lenders financed $81.4bn of buyouts in 2025, a record. William Blair, using LCD data, puts LBO-related syndicated loan issuance at $59.4bn.
The flow runs both ways. PitchBook LCD counts $34.1bn of direct loans refinanced into the syndicated market in 2025, and $36.9bn moving the other way.
Price drives most of these moves. William Blair reports single B-minus syndicated spreads of 354bps in the fourth quarter of 2025, the lowest since the financial crisis. PitchBook LCD puts the median spread on PE-backed acquisition loans from direct lenders at SOFR + 475bps in the fourth quarter.
White & Case notes that banks cut fees, took larger underwrites and lowered margins to win borrowers. It also notes that sponsors increasingly treat private debt and syndicated loans as interchangeable.
For the league tables, this means a bank’s LevFin rank now depends partly on how often it beats direct lenders on price and certainty.
If you are choosing a LevFin seat, the league table is only half the picture. The other half is what the team does day to day.
Mergers & Inquisitions points out that some banks run LevFin as a markets-based role, focused on tracking markets and updating slides. Others make it deal-heavy and close to M&A, with more modelling.
Before you accept an offer, check:
A top-five bank gives you the largest deals and the strongest name. A bank ranked sixth to tenth can still offer strong deal flow, so ask how much of each deal analysts run themselves. If you are weighing restructuring as an alternative, see our ranking of the top restructuring investment banks.
JPMorgan. Dealogic ranks it first by LevFin revenue for both 2024 and 2025, with $1,373m and a 10.7% share in 2025. IFR also named it Leveraged Finance House of the Year for 2025, after it committed $20bn to the Electronic Arts buyout.
BNP Paribas, followed by JPMorgan. BNP Paribas led Dealogic’s 2025 EMEA table for bank-led acquisition loan revenue with $47m and a 9.8% share, ahead of JPMorgan at $39m. ION Analytics also ranked BNP Paribas first for European LevFin revenue in the first quarter of 2026.
It arranges sub-investment grade debt, mainly leveraged loans and high-yield bonds. The bank structures the debt, commits to fund it, then sells it to investors such as CLOs and credit funds. The debt typically funds buyouts, acquisitions, refinancings or dividend recaps, often for private equity owned companies.
Partly. PitchBook LCD reports that US direct lenders financed $81.4bn of buyouts in 2025, against $59.4bn of LBO-related syndicated loans. But business moves both ways. $34.1bn of direct loans were refinanced into the syndicated market in 2025, while $36.9bn moved the other way.
It is a strong route into credit and a workable route into buyouts. LevFin analysts model debt capacity and work with sponsors daily. Exits to direct lending, credit and distressed funds are the most direct. In our view, deal-heavy teams, which do more modelling, are the better base for a move into buyouts.
JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and BofA Securities are the top leveraged finance banks, with 27% of 2025 LevFin fees between them. Judge banks on LevFin revenue and institutional loan tables, which track who leads the debt. If you are choosing a team, weigh its deal flow and role alongside its rank.
P.S. If you are targeting LevFin teams at these banks, the Investment Banking Contacts Database [Global] helps you reach the right people, and our Premium Resources include additional tools you might be interested in. For weekly finance updates and the latest financial reports, join the Private Equity Bros newsletter.
Join 80,000+ readers
One email a week: markets and finance news, the latest M&A deals and reports, investor biographies and deep dives.
Free forever. Unsubscribe anytime.
