Skadden heads US M&A tables while Freshfields leads in Europe
Deal lawyers are unsurprisingly predicting another busy year in M&A as Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer emerged as the top corporate deal shops in the US and Europe respectively in 2015, according to Dealogic.
In a record year for global M&A, when worldwide deal volume surpassed $5trn for the first time, global lawyer rankings for corporate advisory work by deal value put Skadden top of the class, advising on 293 deals worth over $1trn, eclipsing rivals including Wachtell, Lipton,
Rosen & Katz, which came second with 130 deals valued at $733.1bn, and Latham & Watkins, which came third with 302 deals totalling $590.2bn.
Skadden also came top in the US attorney rankings by value, advising on 203 deals valued at $881.9bn. Notably, Weil, Gotshal & Manges has fallen several places. While the firm had taken the top spot in the global attorney rankings and US rankings in 2014, it now sits in sixth and fourth place respectively.
Meanwhile, Freshfields retained its position as the top firm in the European lawyer rankings for value, advising on $418.4bn worth of deals, while other Magic Circle firms Linklaters, Clifford Chance and Slaughter and May came third ($228.8bn), fourth ($221bn) and sixth ($200.3bn) respectively. New entrants to the top ten included Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton in seventh place (2014: 12th) and Hogan Lovells in ninth (2014: 15th).
‘We have seen the Sainsbury-Argos deal announcement and I wouldn’t be surprised to see other deals in retail.’
Oliver Lazenby, Freshfields
Dutch heavyweight De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek leapt to eighth place from 38th in 2014. This was buoyed by its role in Royal Dutch Shell’s £47bn announced acquisition of BG Group, alongside Slaughter and May and Freshfields, as well as the €1bn initial public offering of GrandVision, the owner of Vision Express, alongside Linklaters and Davis Polk & Wardwell.
Freshfields corporate partner Oliver Lazenby noted that the gaming sector generally has been busy and, while the pharmaceutical industry has had ‘a good run’ and there would still be good deals, it will not be the main focus as other sectors pick up.
‘There’s interesting things going on in retail following poor Christmas trading as we are seeing profit warnings from the big-name retailers, which will drive some sales. We have already seen the Sainsbury-Argos deal announcement and I wouldn’t be surprised to see other deals in the retail sector.’
Meanwhile, Skadden’s New York M&A head Stephen Arcano told Legal Business: ‘The factors driving the strategy-led deal market in 2015, including corporate imperatives to generate growth and an environment generally conducive to M&A, should continue to drive activity in the coming year; however, risks and uncertainties in the global economy, and market volatility, could dampen the M&A market in 2016.’
victoria.young@legalease.co.uk
For more comment from leading corporate partners on the outlook for 2016, see ‘The Last Word‘