More than 1,200 firms have advised on at least one IT services M&A deal over the past two decades, ranging from JP Morgan to one-person shops. They do not do the same work, and the market is far more segmented than it looks from the outside.
We mapped that market, using Mergermarket data on every advised IT services transaction from January 2005 to July 2026. Four groups of advisors emerge, each right for a different owner and deal size. One pattern sets IT services apart from software: the busiest advisors are not investment banks.
What the Data Shows
We pulled the full Mergermarket league table for Computer Services financial advisors from January 2005 to July 2026. The dataset covers 6,340 transactions advised by 1,209 distinct firms. About half of those deals had publicly disclosed values, totaling more than $3 trillion in aggregate.
Key findings (Aventis Advisors analysis of Mergermarket data, 2005 to July 2026)
- 1,209 advisory firms were credited on at least one IT services M&A deal between 2005 and July 2026; 652 of them (54%) did exactly one.
- Ten advisors account for 59.5% of all disclosed IT services deal value. JP Morgan leads with $244 billion across 84 deals.
- The volume leaders are accountants, not banks: PwC (177 deals), KPMG (174), Deloitte (165), and EY (159) advised roughly 675 transactions combined, more than the entire bulge bracket.
- Average disclosed deal sizes differ by two orders of magnitude across groups: $3.1 billion at JP Morgan, $169 million at the Big 4 combined, and $23 to $110 million at the sector specialists.
- The median private IT services transaction closed at 8.8x EV/EBITDA in late 2025, down from a 13.6x peak in 2023.
The market is heavily concentrated at the top. Just three advisors, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and Citi, capture 23% of all disclosed IT services deal value. Ten advisors capture 60%. The remaining 40% of value is divided among 1,199 firms.
| Rank tier | Number of advisors | Cumulative share of value |
|---|---|---|
| Top 1 (JP Morgan) | 1 | 8.0% |
| Top 5 | 5 | 37.0% |
| Top 10 | 10 | 59.5% |
| Top 50 | 50 | 91.0% |
| Top 100 | 100 | 96.4% |
| Everyone else | 1,109 | 3.6% |
Value and volume sit in different places, however. The seventeen bulge bracket banks and elite boutiques at the top of the table account for 74% of disclosed value but only about 14% of transactions. The volume leaders are the Big 4 accounting firms, and more than half of all advised deals sit with the long tail of firms outside the top 100.
The Most Active IT Services M&A Advisors, 2005 to July 2026
| Advisor | Deals advised | Disclosed value ($M) | Avg deal size ($M) | Group |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PwC | 177 | 10,306 | 154 | Accounting network |
| KPMG | 174 | 8,093 | 125 | Accounting network |
| Deloitte | 165 | 3,975 | 69 | Accounting network |
| EY | 159 | 20,670 | 318 | Accounting network |
| Goldman Sachs | 110 | 240,332 | 2,670 | Bulge bracket |
| Houlihan Lokey | 104 | 29,044 | 785 | Mid-market bank |
| Morgan Stanley | 99 | 216,130 | 2,513 | Bulge bracket |
| Jefferies | 93 | 23,915 | 399 | Mid-market bank |
| BDO | 92 | 1,341 | 48 | Accounting network |
| Raymond James | 89 | 9,895 | 275 | Mid-market bank |
| Oaklins | 88 | 3,576 | 108 | Specialist network |
| JP Morgan | 84 | 244,323 | 3,054 | Bulge bracket |
| Citi | 84 | 230,154 | 3,435 | Bulge bracket |
| Rothschild | 82 | 34,448 | 766 | Mid-market bank |
| Credit Suisse | 72 | 128,614 | 2,338 | Bulge bracket |
Deal counts include all credited deals; average deal size is computed from deals with disclosed values only (about half of all deals). Source: Mergermarket Computer Services league table, 2005 to July 2026, USD. Aventis Advisors analysis.
Four Groups, Four Different Businesses
When you separate firms by what they do, four distinct groups emerge in IT services M&A. Each group has its own typical deal sizes, buyer relationships, fee economics, and process design. They are not in competition with each other. They serve different owners.
JP Morgan has advised on 84 IT services deals at an average disclosed deal size of $3.1 billion. 7 Mile Advisors, a US boutique dedicated to IT services, has advised on 18 at an average of $23 million. Both run full pipelines; they never meet on a deal.
Group 1: Bulge Bracket and Elite Boutiques
Average disclosed deal size: $2.3B to $5.3B. 40 to 110 IT services deals each over two decades. Combined share of value: ~74%.
This group includes JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Citi, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Evercore, RBC Capital Markets, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, UBS, Barclays, Lazard, and Moelis, plus the elite boutiques Centerview, Qatalyst, and LionTree. These are the firms running the headline IT services deals: payment processor mega-mergers, data center take-privates, and IT outsourcing carve-outs.
JP Morgan leads on value with $244 billion across 84 deals, closely followed by Goldman Sachs with $240 billion across 110. The most extreme profile in the dataset belongs to LionTree Advisors: just 4 IT services deals, but nearly $67 billion in disclosed value, an average of almost $17 billion per deal.
Right for: public-company carve-outs, take-privates, $1B+ enterprise value deals, cross-border mega-mergers, infrastructure-scale transactions.
Wrong for: almost every founder reading this article. A bulge bracket bank running a $30 million managed services exit would be a misallocation of resources on both sides. The minimum fee economics do not work, and the deal would be staffed by junior analysts.
Group 2: Mid-Market Investment Banks
Average disclosed deal size: $140M to $790M. 15 to 105 IT services deals each. Combined share of value: ~5%.
This is where most of the $100M+ IT services M&A happens. The banks here include Houlihan Lokey (104 IT services deals at an average disclosed deal size of $785 million), Jefferies (93 at $399 million), Rothschild (82 at $766 million), Raymond James (89 at $275 million), William Blair (70 at $318 million), Stifel, Robert W. Baird, Piper Sandler, Harris Williams, Lincoln International, Canaccord Genuity, and DC Advisory. Arma Partners is the European technology pure-play, with 28 IT services deals averaging $357 million.
Right for: IT services companies with $100M to $1B enterprise value, established businesses with predictable EBITDA and institutional ownership, processes that need broad buyer outreach.
Wrong for: founder-led businesses under $50M EV. A bank whose median engagement is in the hundreds of millions cannot put its best team on a $30 million deal, and most of these firms maintain fee minimums that filter such deals out. The senior banker who pitched the mandate moves on to a larger one, and the analyst who remains has never sat across from a buyer’s CFO.
Group 3: The Big 4 and Accountancy Networks
Average disclosed deal size: $31M to $318M. 53 to 177 IT services deals each. Combined share of value: ~1.5%, but the largest deal volume of any group.
PwC advised 177 IT services deals in our data, KPMG 174, Deloitte 165, and EY 159: roughly 675 transactions combined, more than the entire bulge bracket. Add BDO (92) and Grant Thornton (53) and the accountancy networks clear 800. Their average disclosed deal size, around $169 million for the Big 4 combined, sits squarely in the mid-market.
The pattern has a logic. IT services is a fragmented industry full of founder- and family-owned companies valued on EBITDA, which is home terrain for accounting-led corporate finance teams, especially in corporate divestitures and succession sales.
Right for: companies with long-standing audit relationships, corporate divestitures, succession-driven sales with a domestic buyer universe, owners who value tax and audit integration with the M&A work.
Wrong for: owners who need positioning rather than processing. A team closing dozens of deals a year runs a standardized playbook: same buyer lists, same information memorandum template, same auction mechanics. In a sector where the difference between a 7x and an 11x EBITDA outcome is an argument about revenue quality, the three weeks nobody spends building that argument are expensive.
Group 4: Sector Specialists and Networks
Average disclosed deal size: $23M to $110M. 10 to 90 IT services deals each. A small share of disclosed value, but the natural home for founder-led deals.
This is the group that matters for most IT services founders. It includes the international networks of mid-market boutiques, such as Oaklins and the Globalscope network of independent member firms (which Aventis is part of), alongside tech- and services-focused boutiques like Clearwater International, Cambon Partners, Translink, Bryan Garnier, Drake Star, Equiteq, 7 Mile Advisors, Mooreland Partners, GP Bullhound, and Q Advisors, plus many other sector boutiques not individually tracked in the league table.
Oaklins is the largest international network in our data, with 88 IT services deals at $108 million average disclosed deal size. The Globalscope network has 47 credited IT services deals: 22 under the network’s own name (Aventis, like some other members, reports its deals to Mergermarket as Globalscope) and 25 under individually credited member firms. The network counts 57 member firms across more than 50 countries. Among the dedicated services specialists, Equiteq (19 deals) built its franchise on consulting and IT services sales, and 7 Mile Advisors (18) focuses exclusively on IT services in the US mid-market.
An important caveat applies to this group. Only about half of the 6,340 deals in the table have a disclosed value, and disclosure skews large: deals between $5 million and $50 million almost never report terms. The specialist tier does most of its work in that undisclosed band, so both the counts and the averages understate every firm in this group. Absence from the league table is not an indicator of quality at this end of the market. References, sector knowledge, and tombstones matter more than league table position.
Right for: founder-led IT services companies, $10M to $100M enterprise value, companies that need services-specific positioning (revenue mix, client concentration, utilization, attrition, vendor partnerships), processes where senior partners run the deal, cross-border deals where the international network matters.
Wrong for: $500M+ public-company mandates, founders who want a low-touch broker listing rather than a competitive process, highly regulated transactions that require a balance-sheet bank.
The Occasional Advisors
One more group deserves mention, because it is the largest: of the 1,209 firms in the table, 652 did exactly one IT services deal in twenty-one years, and 84% did five or fewer. These are generalist local boutiques, solo dealmakers, and business brokers who took an IT services mandate once, usually through a personal relationship.
This is the group a founder is most likely to hire by accident, through an introduction from an accountant or an acquaintance. The risk surfaces late, when the buyer’s diligence team asks about revenue recognition on fixed-price projects, or when a PE platform making its third acquisition of the year opens negotiations with tactics the advisor has never seen. Selling a company should not be the advisor’s first IT services transaction, and at most firms in the table, it would be.
How to Choose the Right Advisor
Directories tell you which firms exist. They do not help you decide. Here is how we would think about it.
Match your deal size to the right group first. A $20M EV managed services deal goes to a sector specialist. A $150M EV deal could go to either a mid-market bank or a strong specialist depending on the buyer universe. A $1B+ deal goes to Group 1 or 2. Mismatching groups is the single most common mistake founders make.
Within a group, ask for the firm’s median completed deal size. Not the headline. The median. A specialist whose median is $10M may not have buyer relationships for a $60M process. A bank whose median is $200M will not give a $30M deal real attention.
Test IT services fluency in the first conversation. Ask the advisor how they would position your revenue mix (time and materials versus managed services versus fixed-price projects), client concentration, utilization, attrition, and vendor partnerships to a buyer. IT services businesses are valued on EBITDA multiples, not ARR multiples, and the diligence questions differ from software. The gap between services-native and services-curious advisors is visible within fifteen minutes.
Ask who runs the process. Senior partner pitches followed by junior-led execution is the most common failure mode in M&A advisory. Get a written commitment on who leads buyer outreach, who negotiates the LOI, and who is in the room for diligence calls.
Look at the research the firm publishes. Advisors who publish current valuation data on their sector are forced to be accurate, because their public material is checked by every buyer they pitch. Advisors who publish nothing rely on memory, generic databases, and outdated comps.
Understand the fee structure. Most IT services M&A advisors charge a monthly retainer plus a success fee. Retainers typically run $5K to $15K per month. Success fees scale inversely to deal size: 1-3% in Group 1, 2-5% at mid-market banks, 3-8% at sector boutiques.
IT Services M&A in 2026: What Matters Now
The market has cooled from its post-pandemic peak. The median private IT services transaction closed at 8.8x EV/EBITDA in late 2025, down from 13.6x in 2023, with revenue multiples steady around 1.3x. (See our IT Services Valuation Multiples post for the full data.) AI is repricing the entire sector, and buyers stress-test every business model built on billable hours.
In this environment, three things matter more than they used to.
Positioning. Buyers pay premium multiples for services companies they understand to be defensible: recurring managed services revenue, enterprise clients embedded in multi-year programs, and a credible case for why AI expands rather than erodes margins. The job of the advisor is to build that case in the materials and defend it through diligence. Our IT services M&A research covers what buyers look for.
Process discipline. Slow processes lose value. Buyers re-trade when they sense weakness, and they sense weakness when timelines slip. With PE consolidators running permanent corporate development functions, a loose process gets picked apart. A tight, structured process protects value.
Deal structure. IT services deals are people businesses, and buyers know it. Earnouts, retention packages for key delivery leaders, working capital targets around milestone billing, and client concentration escrows do more of the work when headline multiples compress. These are the terms where experienced advisors earn their fees.
Frequently asked questions
Who are the most active M&A advisors for IT services companies?
By deal count in Mergermarket (2005 to July 2026), the most active advisors in IT services M&A are PwC (177 deals), KPMG (174), Deloitte (165), and EY (159). Among investment banks, Goldman Sachs (110) and Houlihan Lokey (104) lead. Among sector specialists, the Oaklins network leads with 88 deals; the Globalscope network, of which Aventis Advisors is a member, has 47.
Which banks advise the largest IT services deals?
JP Morgan has the highest disclosed IT services deal value at $244 billion across 84 deals, followed by Goldman Sachs ($240 billion) and Citi ($230 billion). LionTree Advisors has the highest average deal size at nearly $17 billion across just 4 deals.
How much does an IT services M&A advisor cost?
Most charge a monthly retainer of $5,000 to $15,000 plus a success fee at closing. Success fees scale inversely with deal size: roughly 1-3% at bulge bracket banks, 2-5% at mid-market banks, and 3-8% at sector boutiques handling $10 to $100 million deals.
How many M&A advisors work on IT services deals?
1,209 firms were credited on at least one IT services deal over 21 years, but the active market is far smaller: 84% of those firms did five or fewer deals, and 54% did exactly one. A few dozen firms worldwide advise IT services transactions consistently.
What multiples do IT services companies sell for?
The median private IT services transaction closed at 8.8x EV/EBITDA in late 2025, with revenue multiples around 1.3x. The 2023 peak was 13.6x EV/EBITDA. Size, recurring revenue share, and client quality drive the spread; see our IT services valuation multiples research.
About Aventis Advisors
Aventis Advisors is an M&A advisor for IT services and software companies, with offices in Warsaw and New York. We work with founders across Europe and North America on sell-side mandates, buy-side searches, and capital raises in IT services, software development, cloud and data engineering, and vertical technology consulting.
We belong squarely in Group 4 and we are honest about it. We do not pretend to compete with JP Morgan on $10 billion deals or with the Big 4 on volume. We compete with the other tech-focused mid-market boutiques, and there are four things we believe set us apart inside that group.
Our process is research-led. We publish quarterly valuation research covering IT services, software, SaaS, and AI. The Aventis IT Services Index tracks listed IT services companies, and our private deal database covers thousands of technology transactions since 2015. When we go to market with a client, we know what comparable companies have traded for, not what brokers say they have traded for.
We are an AI-native firm. We use AI throughout our workflow for deal sourcing, buyer mapping, document drafting, and analysis. The result is faster turnaround on the work that traditionally bottlenecks on associates, and more senior time spent on judgment and negotiation.
Our advice is honest, including the option not to sell. We believe the world would be better off with fewer but better quality M&A deals, done at the right moment for the company and its owners. If the timing is wrong, the price expectations are unrealistic, or the company would be better off running for cash flow, we say so. The wrong deal is worse than no deal.
Our buyer network is global through Globalscope. Aventis is a member firm of Globalscope, an international M&A advisory network of 57 member firms in more than 50 countries, with 47 credited IT services deals in our data. For European IT services founders looking at US strategics, or US founders looking at European nearshore platforms, this matters. Cross-border deals are where weak buyer networks fail.
Every engagement is led by a senior advisor from first conversation through close, with no junior handoffs once the deal is live. We are strongest for IT services founders with $10M to $100M+ enterprise value who want a competitive process, research-backed positioning, and a senior team they can reach.
Get in touch with us to discuss what your business could be worth and how the process looks.
Data sources: Mergermarket Computer Services league table, 1 January 2005 to 14 July 2026, USD. Deal counts from the full league table. Average deal sizes computed from deals with disclosed values only, roughly half of all transactions; smaller deals are less likely to disclose values, which skews averages upward. Aventis Advisors analysis.
