Sullivan & Cromwell led the global M&A legal advisor rankings by deal value in the first quarter of the year, following the strongest opening period for deal-making in five years, according to the London Stock Exchange Group’s preliminary rankings.
The New York firm worked on 36 deals worth just short of $178bn, roughly 18% higher than second-place Wachtell, which worked on 23 deals worth $149.6bn. The firms’ positions atop the rankings were fuelled by their work advising OpenAI on its $110bn equity capital raise led by Amazon, NVIDIA and SoftBank Group – the biggest deal to be announced so far this quarter.
Meanwhile, Kirkland & Ellis placed third after working on 149 deals worth $137.8bn, while Gibson Dunn & Crutcher and Skadden completed the top five, at $129.1bn and $111.6bn, respectively.
US firms dominated the rankings, though Clifford Chance overtook Freshfields to become the highest-ranking non-US firm, with deals worth $91.7bn putting it in eighth place. Freshfields was the second highest-ranking non-US firm, at $71.7bn, followed by HSF Kramer ($55bn), A&O Shearman ($53.2bn), Allens ($51bn), Slaughter and May ($47.8bn) and Linklaters ($44.3bn).
Worldwide M&A activity clocked in at $1.028trn between the start of the year and 24 March, the period included in LSEG’s rankings, up 35% from the same period in 2024 and the strongest start to a year since record-breaking 2021. Despite the increase in deal value, the number of deals declined by 19% to 9,772, the lowest number since 2015.
Megadeals like AES Corp’s $33bn acquisition by a consortium led by BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners and EQT AB helped propel US-targeted M&A to $644.7bn, a 52% increase on the year before and its highest level in five years. All but three of the top 10 deals announced up to 24 March had US targets.
Meanwhile, European and UK deal-making also rebounded strongly, rising 21% to just over $347bn and 41% to $133bn respectively and giving them their strongest start to a year since 2018.
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