Goldman Sachs is on course to finish 2011 top of the global mergers and acquisitions league table. It holds a 24% market share of all deals for the year to date, according to Dealogic, more than 3.5 percentage points ahead of its nearest competitor.

If the bank maintains its lead in the rankings, it would represent the largest margin any top-ranked bank has held over the second-placed bank in the rankings since 2003, when Goldman again ranked top ahead of Merrill Lynch.