Nomura beats Goldman to top spot in a record year for Japan M&A

[TOKYO] Nomura Holdings took back the top spot in advising on Japanese mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in 2025 when deals related to the country hit a record.

Japan’s biggest brokerage won 18.6 trillion yen (S$153 billion ) of M&A advisory deals last year, leading the pack after slipping to No 2 in 2024, Bloomberg-compiled data show. Goldman Sachs came in second. The total value of M&A transactions in Japan shot up 89 per cent to a record 59.5 trillion yen.

“Both domestic and cross-border deals were numerous, making it an extremely active year,” said Kei Nitta, a senior corporate managing director overseeing global M&A at Nomura Securities. “Listed companies are actively pursuing M&A to enhance corporate value.”

The Japan M&A market has been on fire in part because the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) has increased pressure on companies to improve shareholder value, such as through corporate consolidations, sales of non-core assets and privatisation. Bankers expect the trend to continue in 2026.

Large deals boosted Japan’s M&A tally last year, including Toyota Group’s proposed delisting of Toyota Industries, valued at 4.7 trillion yen when it was announced, and NTT’s full acquisition of unit NTT Data Group, a 2.4 trillion yen transaction.

The number of deals also rose, gaining about 6 per cent from a year earlier to more than 5,100, according to Bloomberg-compiled data,

There’s “a heightened sense of crisis among Japanese companies”, driven by TSE initiatives and the rising influence of activist shareholders, said Yuusuke Ishimaru, senior deputy head of M&A advisory at SMBC Nikko Securities.

That’s led to management of all listed companies, regardless of size, becoming more focused on stock prices, said Ishimaru, whose firm is a unit of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, and ranked fourth last year in M&A advising. Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities was No 3 in 2025, Bloomberg-compiled data show.

Meanwhile, foreign securities firms secured numerous deals involving investments in the US, fuelled by the AI and semiconductor boom.

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That included a deal handled by Goldman that was the biggest in 2025, an additional investment of up to US$40 billion in US-based OpenAI by a consortium led by SoftBank Group.

Masayoshi Son’s tech firm topped the acquiring company ranking for the first time in three years in 2025 in deal value terms, with acquisitions totalling 10.3 trillion yen. SoftBank Group announced last January that it would play a central role in the “Stargate Project”, a consortium investing US$500 billion in US artificial intelligence (AI)-related ventures over the next four years.

Capital flows into US and Canadian startups have been rising, with venture capital investment in such firms connected to AI surging 85 per cent from a year earlier in 2025 to about US$211 billion, according to US research firm Crunchbase.

At the same time, private credit is starting to be used by Japanese companies in M&A, according to Satoshi Yamagata, co-head of Japan M&A advisory business at Goldman.

Yamagata said that discussions with clients more and more involve private credit alongside traditional bank loans and equity financing, reflecting a diversification of funding methods. BLOOMBERG