London-based Anglo-German practice Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer along with New York’s Sullivan & Cromwell and Skadden took the top slots in the Thomson Reuters rankings, in a report that demonstrates there is still little to celebrate across the sector generally.
Overall, the survey shows that worldwide M&A deals are down for the year-on-year period by 22 per cent to $1.1 trillion, while private equity deals slumped by 19 per cent .

Emerging markets

According to the report, Freshfields led the pack in announced deals, while Sullivan & Cromwell topped the completed rankings. Skadden took the top spot in advising on emerging markets deals. Nonetheless, overall deals in that category were down by 12 per cent.
There was little surprise in the report’s claim that the most targeted emerging market for M&A was China, with more than 1,500 deals in first six months of 2012, worth some $70.5 billion. Brazil and Russia followed.
However, there were some bright spots and potential signs of recovery in the established markets, according to two further reports. Mergermarket’s figures for the second quarter of this year indicated improvement, with global M&A increasing by nearly 14 per cent over first-quarter activity, which, according to the researchers, reverses five quarters of decline.

High value deals

London-based magic circle law firm Clifford Chance won that league table’s honours for acting on the highest value deals in the first quarter of this year.
And figures specifically for the UK showed that M&A, flotations, rights issues and placements increased by nearly 30 per cent in value over the last six months compared with the same period last year.