Foreign banks JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley knock down Kotak, ICICI Bank in ECM league ranks

After years of domestic dominance, Indian equity capital market investment banker rankings saw a decisive shake-up in 2025, with JP Morgan emerging as the top-ranked ECM (equity capital markets) banker by fees earned. The Wall Street heavyweight finished the year with $66.9 million in fees, claiming the No 1 position and ending home-grown Kotak Mahindra Bank’s long run at the top of the league tables.

Kotak’s decline is particularly noteworthy given its dominance, given the firm had held the top slot every year since 2021, barring in 2023 when Jefferies briefly topped the charts. In 2024, Kotak reclaimed the lead but has since slipped to the third position in this year, earning $49.96 million as global banks captured a greater share of the biggest capital raise in India’s capital market history.

While Kotak has stayed on in the top 5, ICICI Bank saw the sharpest fall to 11th rank, falling out of the Top 5 for the first time since 2021, earning a paltry $19.9 million, a sharp drop from $52 million earned in 2024.

The shift comes in a year when the overall ECM fee pool remained robust, even as deal volumes moderated. As against 592 issues generating $657 million in 2024, deal volumes fell to 507, but fetching $649 million in fees. According to data from LSEG, the top 25 investment bankers generated $561.2 million across 473 deals (as of December 23), marginally lower than $568.8 million from 602 deals in 2024, but significantly higher than earlier years such as 2023 ($318.4 million from 360 deals) and 2022 ($175.8 million from 215 deals). The data underscores the market increasingly driven by larger, higher-fee transactions, rather than sheer volume.

Notably, only the top three banks managed to cross the $50 million mark in 2025, highlighting the concentration of fee income at the very top of the table.

Market-wide, India’s ECM underwriting revenues held up well despite a visible slowdown in issuance volumes. According to Elaine Tan, Senior Manager (deals intelligence) at LSEG, India’s equity capital markets underwriting fees in 2025 were broadly steady, registering only a marginal 0.7% dip from 2024 levels. The resilience in fee income, even as deal counts fell sharply, highlights how issuers increasingly gravitated toward fewer but significantly larger transactions, boosting average deal size and fee intensity.

 Global banks reclaim leadership

JP Morgan’s ascent reflects a year in which international investment banks leveraged cross-border reach and institutional distribution to win marquee mandates. The No 2 spot went to Morgan Stanley, which delivered one of the most striking comebacks in the 2025 rankings. Morgan Stanley surged to second place with $64.6 million in fees, marking its strongest showing since 2021. As recently as 2024, the bank was ranked seventh.

JP Morgan’s rise to the top was underpinned by its involvement in several of the largest and most consequential equity transactions of the year, particularly high-value block trades and headline IPOs. A key contributor was its role in Bharti Airtel’s promoter stake sales, where the bank acted as sole bookrunner for promoter entity Pastel Ltd, part of Singtel, in a 0.8% stake sale worth Rs 10,300 crore in November 2025. Earlier in the year, JP Morgan also led Singtel’s 1.2% stake sale in Airtel valued at around $1.5 billion.

Beyond block trades, the bank was also led three of the biggest IPOs of the year, Tata Capital’s Rs 15,500 crore listing, LG Electronics India’s Rs 11,600 crore offering, and Hexaware Technologies’ Rs 8,700 crore IPO. The breadth of these mandates, spanning conglomerates, technology and consumer-facing businesses, cemented JP Morgan’s fee leadership and lifted its wallet share to 10.3% of the ECM fee pool.

Morgan Stanley’s sharp climb to second place was similarly anchored in a clutch of large, high-profile IPOs. The bank played prominent roles in the Rs 12,500 crore IPO of HDB Financial Services, LG Electronics India’s Rs 11,600 crore listing, and ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company’s Rs 10,600 crore issue. Morgan’s performance marked a clear inflection point after several years of mid-table rankings, underscoring how a focused run at marquee deals can rapidly alter league-table standings in a concentrated fee environment.

A crowded race behind the leaders

Beyond the top trio, competition intensified sharply. Jefferies finished fourth with $43.5 million in fees, reinforcing its reputation as a consistent force following its headline-grabbing leadership in 2023. IIFL Capital Services ranked fifth with $42.4 million, underlining the growing capability of domestic investment banks to compete for sizeable mandates in a market that has matured significantly since the pandemic years.

The broader rankings reveal a distinctly tiered ECM landscape. Following the top five, seven banks earned fees in the $27 million to $43 million range, benefiting from steady participation across IPOs, qualified institutional placements and follow-on offerings. Below them sat a mid-table of six banks with fee income between $10 million and $20 million, reflecting consistent but small-ticket involvement.

At the lower end of the rankings, nine firms earned between $4 million and $9.6 million, highlighting the long tail of India’s ECM market. Hem Securities brought up the rear, ranking last with $4.42 million in fees, in a year where competition for mandates intensified amid fewer overall deals.

JP Morgan show

The strong showing by JP Morgan India comes amid a leadership churn within its investment banking franchise during the year. In January, Navin Wadhwani stepped down as head of investment banking after a little over two years in the role. Following his departure, responsibilities were split between Nitin Maheshwari and Ravi Shankar, both long-serving bankers who have been with the firm since 2015 and 2017 respectively. The leadership transition was followed by another high-profile exit in September, when Citigroup announced that it had hired of Kulkarni, JP Morgan’s India chief, as co-head of investment banking coverage for Japan, Asia North and Australia, and Asia South.

Interestingly, the strongest performances in recent years by the India franchise mirrors a robust momentum at the parent level too. Globally, the bank played a role in several marquee transactions, including Medline Inc’s $6.26 billion IPO, the largest healthcare listing in US history, the $8.4 billion sale of Clearwater Analytics to Permira and Warburg Pincus, and Alphabet’s more than $4.75 billion acquisition of Intersect to bolster its artificial intelligence infrastructure.