Goldman Sachs (GS) has a 22% share of the global M&A market by monetary deal volume and once again ranks on top of the M&A league tables approximately halfway through the year. Citi (C) comes in second at around 20% share. Rounding out the top five are Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAC), Morgan Stanley (MS), and JPMorgan (JPM). Two boutiques – Rothschild (less popular in the US but big in Europe and Asia Pacific) and Lazard – crack the top 10. The nine bulge brackets (the bolded abovementioned five, including Credit Suisse (CS), Barclays (BCS), UBS (UBS), and Deutsche Bank (DB)) take 9 of the top 11 spots. (Source: Dealogic) With historically low rates and equity markets around all-time highs, M&A continues to surge for the third year as both source of capital are attractive, as also covered in a separate post on the consolidating corporate world.