Three-quarters of the way through 2013, three firms have landed in the top tier of three separate rankings of M&A legal advisers as the global M&A market experiences a boost from a spate of large transactions—several of figured into the telecommunications industry’s ongoing consolidation trend.
Each of the so-called league tables released this week by Bloomberg, Mergermarket, and Thomson Reuters ranks Davis Polk & Wardwell, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz (in varying order) as the top three firms based on the total value of their corporate clients’ M&A transactions over the first nine months of 2013. Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters both ranked Wachtell first and Davis Polk second, with the order reversed in Mergermarket’s rankings. Simpson Thacher placed third in all the rankings.
Both Davis Polk and Wachtell advised clients on more than $260 billion worth of transactions through the end of September, according to the three separate rankings.
As The Am Law Daily has reported in the past, the three outlets rely on different metrics when ranking legal advisers, making the lists most useful for the broad view they offer of which law firms are especially active in the M&A market.
Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters both tabbed Jones Day as the top firm based on total transactions through the first three quarters of this year with 296 and 275 deals, respectively. DLA Piper sits atop Mergermarket’s deal count ranking with 247 deals during that same period.
Davis Polk topped all three outlets rankings based on total deal value in both the first and second quarters of this year, with Wachtell generally following close behind before overtaking its Am Law 100 rival in two of the three latest lists.
