Across the industry, total advisory fees rose around 6% year over year and fell around 24% quarter over quarter. Total investment banking fees increased around 4% from the first quarter of 2024 and declined around 6% from the prior quarter.
Citi reported the largest year-over-year increase in advisory revenue among major US investment banks in the first quarter of 2025, with advisory fees rising 84% from a year earlier and 20% from the fourth quarter.
Citi also led in total fee growth, reporting a 14% year-over-year increase and a 16% quarter-over-quarter gain.
Standing out from other banks, Goldman Sachs posted a 22% decline in advisory revenue from a year earlier and an 18% drop from Q4. Total investment banking fees dropped 8% year over year for the investment bank.
Several firms, including Bank of America, Jefferies, and Goldman Sachs, posted negative year-over-year growth in total fees despite gains or relatively flat performance in advisory.
Meanwhile, Wells Fargo posted the second highest growth in total fees year over year at 24%.
Despite some positive results last quarter, bankers are more focused on the outlook as political uncertainty increasingly weighs on the dealmaking environment. While markets and forecasts recently improved from their recent lows after President Trump announced he would decrease certain tariffs and give some industries certain kinds of exemptions, most bankers and their clients are having trouble making sense of what’s next.
On a conference call, JPMorgan’s CFO Jeremy Barnum said that advisory fees were up in Q1 because deals that were announced last year were closing and looking ahead, the firm is taking on a more cautious outlook for investment banking.
“While client engagement and dialogue is quite elevated, both the conversion of the existing pipeline and origination of new activity will require a reduction in the current levels of uncertainty,” he said.
Here are some notable quotes from bank CEOs on their Q1 earnings calls:
- JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon: “The economy is facing considerable turbulence (including geopolitics), with the potential positives of tax reform and deregulation and the potential negatives of tariffs and ‘trade wars,’ ongoing sticky inflation, high fiscal deficits and still rather high asset prices and volatility.”
- “Anecdotally, a lot of people are not doing things because of this. They’re going to wait and see,” Dimon said. “And that’s M&A, that’s M&A with middle-market companies, that’s people’s hiring plans.”
- Morgan Stanley’s Ted Pick: “The simple truth is that we do not know where trade policy will settle nor what the effects will be on the economy.”
- Goldman Sachs's David Soloman: “This uncertainty around the path forward and fears over the potentially escalating effects of the trade war have created material risks for the US and global economy,” though the executive remains slightly more optimistic that the administration will listen to corporate America and adjust its trade policies.
