M&A in 2026: More Clients Than Capital Markets, Fewer Repeat Deals

Read the M&A deal market 2026 by its clients rather than by its deal count and one feature stands out: breadth. Sartori & Partners data show 9,281 dated M&A deals in the 12 months to October 2026, brought to market by 5,239 distinct clients. Capital markets logged more deals, 12,366, from fewer clients, 4,831. Deal counts here are matters on record, not fees, so the point is not size. It is shape. M&A work is spread across a very wide base of companies that come back less often than issuers do, and that shape decides how a firm should build an M&A bench and how it should judge the client book a lateral partner brings.

In the Sartori & Partners deal records, M&A counts 408 more distinct clients than capital markets while carrying 3,085 fewer deals. Per client, the gap is plain. The average M&A client appeared on 1.8 deals in 12 months. The average capital markets client appeared on 2.6, and the average leveraged and acquisition finance client on 2.4, across 327 borrowers and 776 deals.

The reason is the nature of the work. Issuers return to the debt and equity markets on a calendar, and leveraged borrowers refinance and reprice the same facilities. A company buys or sells a business when its strategy calls for it, and its next deal may be some time away. Disputes and investigations do show more distinct clients than M&A, but they are matters taken from court and agency records rather than transactions, so they are left out of this comparison.

For a hiring firm, this is the central fact about M&A clients. A partner's M&A book is a list of companies that each need deal counsel only now and then, so its value rests on how many live relationships it holds and how recently they produced work, not on a few anchor clients that send a matter every quarter. Diligence on an M&A lateral should ask how many companies the partner advised in the last 24 months and how many of them came back.

Technology and software is the largest client sector in M&A, on 10.6% of deals. Financial sponsors and pharma and biotech follow at 6.2% and 6.2%, power and renewables comes fourth at 4.7%, and every other listed sector sits at 4.3% or below.

The other transactional types lean harder on one or two client groups. In capital markets, pharma and biotech companies appear on 13.9% of deals and banks and financial institutions on 13.5%. In leveraged and acquisition finance, financial sponsors appear on 23.8% of deals. Against all dated deals, M&A runs heavier in technology and in industrial manufacturing, at 4.2% against 2.0%, and lighter in banks, at 4.3% against 7.1%. A deal can carry more than one sector and about one deal in six carries none, so these shares are read side by side and never added.

No single sector bench sees most of the M&A flow. A partner who is deep in one industry brings real value, but a firm that wants a steady share of M&A mandates needs several such partners, or partners whose books already cross sectors. Sector depth is a reason to hire; it is not a plan for the whole practice.

Latham & Watkins ranks first by M&A deals advised, in the 401-700 band, and Kirkland & Ellis ranks second, in the 251-400 band. From third place, CMS, down to tenth place, Goodwin Procter, every firm falls in one band: 151-250. In capital markets the two first advisers share the 701-1200 band, a long way above the rest.

A broad client base that returns at 1.8 deals per client a year is what keeps the M&A list level. No adviser can hold a large part of the flow through a handful of relationships, because each relationship produces few deals. Mid-list firms therefore compete on close to equal terms, and the order among them can change with a few client wins.

The busiest M&A advisers are not all the busiest corporate recruiters. Five of the ten also rank in the top 10 of corporate lateral hirers at all levels: Latham & Watkins, Kirkland & Ellis, DLA Piper, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and White & Case. The other five, CMS, Jones Day, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, Sidley Austin and Goodwin Procter, advise at the 151-250 level without ranking among the most active corporate hirers.

For a firm just outside the top 10, the step to the group ranked third to tenth is one band, not a wall. A partner who arrives with a working list of M&A clients is the most direct route into that group, and the firms already in it can be overtaken by a rival that adds a small number of such partners.

On settled 12-month windows, dated M&A deals rose 8.9%, from 8,475 in the 12 months to September 2025 to 9,226 in the 12 months to September 2026. All dated deals rose 10.6% over the same windows, from 43,590 to 48,216, so M&A grew a little more slowly than the deal records as a whole.

The senior bench moved faster. Lateral partner hiring in the Corporate & M&A practice rose 12.2%, with 873 partners in the latest settled 12 months against 778 in the 12 months before. Partners made up 29.9% of the practice's 2,910 lateral moves in the 12 months to October 2026, and 539 firms hired at least one corporate lawyer.

More partners are changing firms against a client base that does not return often. Each new corporate partner has to win companies, not inherit a flow of repeat mandates, and the firm paying for that partner carries the wait until those companies next come to market. Price that wait into the business case before the offer, not after the first slow year.

Judge M&A candidates by the breadth of their client book. With 5,239 distinct M&A clients and 1.8 deals per client in 12 months, a lateral's value lies in how many companies trust them with a sale or an acquisition, not in one client's volume. Ask for the companies advised over 24 months and how many returned.

Build the bench across sectors. Technology leads M&A clients at 10.6%, and the next sectors trail it closely, so a practice built around one industry sees only a slice of the market. Pair sector specialists with partners who carry mixed books.

Aim at the middle of the adviser list. With every firm ranked third to tenth in the 151-250 band, a few well-placed partner hires can move a firm into that group; the two firms above it are a separate contest.

Plan for competition on partners. Corporate partner hiring rose 12.2% on settled windows while M&A deals rose 8.9%, so other firms are already bidding for the same candidates. Sartori & Partners figures point to a market where the scarce asset is the client relationship, and where the firm that tests it hardest in diligence makes the better hire.