Cravath leaps to top spot in European M&A ranking

Cravath leaps to top spot in European M&A ranking

With deals worth $93 billion, Cravath pushes Magic Circle firm Freshfields to the second position in Mergermarket's Q1 rankings

Cravath Swaine & Moore has leapt to the top position in Mergermarket's advisory league table for European M&A in the first quarter of 2021, pushing the Magic Circle firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer to the second position.

Cravath emerged as the numero uno M&A firm in terms of deal value, advising on 12 deals worth almost $93 billion. Of these, two deals were listed in the top-five deals by value. With these two top deals in its kitty, Cravath jumped from 11th ranking during January-March 2020 to the top of the table rank.

Mergermarket's Global & Regional M&A Report 1Q21 has shown Freshfields slipped to second, having worked on 43 deals worth $68 billion, while Kirkland & Ellis climbed five places to third, having advised on 57 deals worth roughly $66 billion.

Herbert Smith Freehills and White & Case finished up on the fourth and fifth spot respectively. Herbert Smith Freehills moved up two places from the fifth-ranked firm of last year with 22 deals worth just under $65 billion while White & Case moved up seven places after having worked on 64 deals worth close to $56 billion.

European M&A witnessed an impressive upward swing by registering a 51.4 per cent year-on-year increase, though the opening three months of 2021 slightly lagged the bumper fourth quarter experienced in 2020. Q1 of 2021 logged in deals worth $291 billion compared to $337 billion in Q4 of 2020.

According to Mergermarket's Global & Regional M&A Report, the majority of those deals were in the UK, which saw 504 transactions worth $111 billion, the largest of which being National Grid's $20 billion acquisition of Western Power Distribution.

Cravath teamed up with Herbert Smith Freehills to advise National Grid with Ashurst and Skadden providing advice to the seller PPL.

"After the rapid increase in the final few months of the year, and a sizeable pipeline of lapsed deals which could return, there is likely to be sustained activity in the coming months," Mark Druskoff of Mergermarket, said.

However, in terms of deal counts, DLA Piper retained its top of the table position by working on 108 deals worth roughly $18 billion — 44 more than second-placed White & Case.

Kirkland's 57 deals saw it take the third spot, with CMS slipping two places to the fourth with 53 deals worth just under $3 billion while Baker McKenzie jumped two places to fifth with 46 deals worth $16 billion.

Global M&A activity, meanwhile, hit $1.3 trillion in the opening quarter of the current year, registering a staggering year-on-year increase of 94 per cent, which is the most in the first three months of any year since records began in 1980.