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Allen & Overy top regional firm
Local deals such as the $12.3 billion sale of Foster’s have helped Allen & Overy claim top spot in an M&A survey for the Asia-Pacific last year.
Justin Whealing
Mergermarket has released its tables of legal advisers across the global M&A sector for 2011.
Its regional analysis found that Allen & Overy acted on the highest value of deals last year in the Asia-Pacific (ex-Japan), with a role on deals with a combined value in excess of $US50 billion.
Simpson Thatcher & Bartlett and Freshfiels Bruckhaus Deringer round out the top five, with the next highest Australian firms being Corrs Chambers Westgarth (eighth), Blake Dawson (ninth) and Clayton Utz (10th).
Mallesons Stephen Jaques rounded out the top 20, which was a heavy drop from last year’s position of sixth.
The strong performance of A&O and Allens in the Mergermarket table was heavily bolstered by both firms acting on the Foster’s sale, which was the largest M&A deal in the region in 2011.
“We think that when clients are buying legal services for these types of transactions, that you want to be competitive in your pricing, but clients understand that if you want the best product and the best service, you need to pay market rates,” said Sydney based M&A corporate partner Aaron Kenavan when asked by Lawyers Weekly how the firm finds the balance between competing on price and expertise in the Australian M&A market.
Unlike the Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg M&A league tables which came out last week, the Mergermarket analysis doesn’t have a distinct section on
According to the Bloomberg analysis, Allens Arthur Robinson ($US45.3 billion), Freehills ($US36.3 billion), Mallesons Stephen Jaques ($US33.8 billion), Clayton Utz ($US33.5 billion) and Simpson, Thatcher & Bartlett ($US33.3 billion) were the top five firms acting on announced deals in
The Thomson Reuters table also painted a picture of top-tier domination, with Freehills emerging as the leading firm by value for completed deals ($63.5 billion), ahead of Clayton Utz ($57.3 billion), Allens ($50.9 billion), Blake Dawson ($49.3 billion) and Mallesons ($46.6 billion).
After its first full year in
A&O also came in at number one for announced deals in the Asia-Pacific (ex-Japan), and at number three behind Freehills and Clayton Utz for completed deals in the Asia-Pacific (ex-Japan) in the Thomson Reuters survey.
Late last week, A&O released its Q4 2011 M&A Index which showed that Australia remained a popular destination for the leading global acquiring countries, being a top 10 target market for the USA, Japan, Canada, China (including Hong Kong) and Switzerland.
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“If people are looking to find growth in markets that have a lower risk then the traditional or emerging markets, then
Similar to the Thomson and Bloomberg tables, the A&O index showed a significant decrease in deal flow for Q4 2011 as compared to Q4 2010.
