Leveraged Finance in 2026: Repeat Borrowers, 2.4 Deals per Client

Most lists of leveraged finance law firms rank advisers by volume. For a firm that hires in this area, the more telling figure is how often the same client comes back. Sartori & Partners data show 776 dated leveraged and acquisition finance deals in the 12 months to October 2026, spread across 327 distinct clients. That works out at 2.4 deals per client, a higher return rate than in M&A or bank lending. For a law-firm leader weighing a lateral partner, the message is simple: in this work one sponsor or lender relationship tends to bring a series of financings, not a single mandate, and the relationship is what a hire really brings.

Each leveraged finance client on record accounts for 2.4 deals on average over 12 months. M&A work is far wider and shallower: 9,281 deals for 5,239 clients, or 1.8 per client. Bank lending sits between the two, with 1,580 deals for 741 clients and 2.1 per client. Leveraged finance is not the most concentrated deal type on this measure. Capital markets clients return more often still, at 2.6 deals each, as frequent issuers go back to the market through the year.

The pattern has a plain cause. A sponsor that buys a company usually finances the purchase, then refinances, reprices or adds debt for follow-on acquisitions, and each step is a new matter for the same client. The counts are matters on record, not fees: a repricing and a new buyout facility weigh the same. What the ratio does show is that a relatively small group of clients generates the flow.

The practical point for a firm is portability. A leveraged finance partner who sees each client 2.4 times in 12 months on average brings a stream of work that an M&A partner with the same client list would not. Diligence on a lateral should therefore test how many of those relationships are institutional, held by the current firm, and how many would follow the partner.

Financial sponsors are the largest client sector in leveraged and acquisition finance, on 23.8% of deals against 6.9% of all dated deals. In M&A, where sponsors are busy buyers and sellers, they appear on 6.2% of deals. Banks and financial institutions come second here, on 11.3% of leveraged finance deals against 7.1% across the market, or 1.6 times their share. A bank can sit on either side of these loans, as arranger, lender or borrower.

Other sectors sit near their market weight or under it. Asset managers and funds appear on 4.8% of these deals against 4.9% overall, and technology and software clients on 4.0% against 6.8%. Industrial manufacturing, at 2.7% against 2.0%, and oil and gas, at 2.6% against 2.2%, run slightly above. One deal can carry several client sectors and some carry none, so each share stands on its own and the shares are compared, never added.

The client book that travels in this work is a sponsor book. A firm recruiting a leveraged finance partner should ask first which sponsors the candidate has financed and how often, then which lenders sat across the table. Sector depth in software or energy matters less than those sponsor relationships.

Leveraged finance belongs to the finance lawyers. The banking and finance practice appears on 91.9% of leveraged and acquisition finance deals, against 86.0% of bank lending deals and 6.3% of all dated deals. Corporate and M&A lawyers are on record on only 4.6%, even though acquisition finance by definition funds a purchase. Buyout lawyers and finance lawyers work side by side on these transactions, but the financing is recorded to the finance team.

That settles where to look. Candidates for this work sit in banking and finance groups, and a corporate partner who has supervised buyouts is not a substitute. Sartori & Partners counts 604 partners among 1,964 lateral banking and finance moves in the 12 months to October, a partner share of 30.8%. That is the pool from which leveraged finance teams are built, and it is shared with every other kind of finance work, from bank lending to project finance.

The adviser list is steep at the top. Latham & Watkins ranks first, in the 101-150 band of deals advised, and no other firm shares that range. Cahill Gordon & Reindel follows in the 61-100 band and Milbank in the 41-60 band. The other seven firms in the top 10, from White & Case to Paul Hastings, all sit together in the 21-40 band. The bank lending list has a flatter head: Jones Day ranks first there in the 101-150 band, and the firms just below it share the 61-100 band.

Some of the same names also hire banking lawyers at volume. Latham & Watkins, Milbank, Kirkland & Ellis and Paul Hastings appear on this adviser list and among the top 10 firms by banking and finance lateral hires in the same 12 months, where Paul Hastings ranks first. Advising on the most leveraged finance deals and adding banking lawyers at pace go together at those firms.

For a firm outside this group, the distance to the first rank is wide but the middle is crowded. Most of the top 10 sit in a single band, so one strong lateral partner with a sponsor following can move a firm into it. For firms already there, the same arithmetic runs the other way: their sponsor relationships are exactly what competitors recruit for.

Dated leveraged and acquisition finance deals rose 18.8% year on year, from 653 to 776 on settled 12-month windows. Over the same windows the whole deal market rose 10.6%, from 43,590 to 48,216, and M&A rose 8.9%, from 8,475 to 9,226. Leveraged finance outpaced both.

Partner supply moved more slowly. Banking and finance partner hiring rose 10.6%, from 546 to 604 lateral partners on the same settled windows. All lateral moves in the practice rose 14.1%, from 1,766 to 2,015, with associates making up most of them: in the latest 12 months associates were 55.8% of the practice's moves and counsel 12.7%.

Deals on record and lawyers who changed firms are different measures, so the gap between them is a direction, not a shortage count. It still points one way. A firm that needs a leveraged finance partner is competing for a pool that has grown more slowly than the work. Plan for longer searches and firmer counteroffers for partners with sponsor books, and treat senior counsel close to promotion as part of the answer.

Where a value is published, leveraged finance deals are large. The median disclosed value is $1,400 million, against $1,200 million for M&A and $500 million for bank lending. Coverage is the caveat. A value is disclosed on only 30.5% of leveraged finance deals, compared with 10.3% in M&A and 57.2% in bank lending. The median describes the deals that publish a figure and cannot be read as the size of a typical deal.

For a firm pricing a lateral hire, deal size matters as much as deal count. A partner who leads large sponsor financings carries fee weight that a raw count does not show. Ask candidates for the deal sizes they can document, because public records leave most of them blank.

Leveraged finance rewards depth over breadth. With 2.4 deals per client against 1.8 in M&A, a partner's value lies in a short list of sponsor and lender relationships that keep coming back. Judge a hire on how many of those relationships would follow and how often they transact, not on the length of the client list.

Three steps follow from the record. Recruit from banking and finance groups, where 91.9% of this work sits, not from corporate teams. Test sponsor coverage first, since sponsors appear on 23.8% of these deals. And move early: the work rose 18.8%, from 653 to 776 deals, while banking partner hiring rose 10.6%, from 546 to 604 partners, so candidates with sponsor books will have more than one firm calling.