Here comes the sun

Eurocrisis or no eurocrisis, a handy pipeline of M&A was available for corporate lawyers to get their teeth into. As in recent years, energy and infrastructure offered the shiniest prospects for fee-hungry firms, while the private equity industry has been relatively busy.

One theme that emerges from the deals list below is the importance of garnering contacts in emerging markets to win outbound work. Linklaters and CMS Cameron McKenna in particular benefited from links with Asian clients, taking major transactional roles for Japan’s Dentsu and Hong Kong’s Cheung Kong Infrastructure respectively.

The smaller, specialist outfits have been kept busy too with French advertiser Publicis Groupe’s buyout of rival Bartle Bogle Hegarty giving roles to Osborne Clarke and Lewis Silkin.

Closer to home, the Co-operative Group has given transactional instructions to Clifford Chance and Reed Smith, hiring the magic circle firm for its acquisition of 632 branches from Lloyds Banking Group. And Cinven has become the latest private equity house to board the bandwagon of making totally unpredictable decisions about which external firm to hire.

So here are the details on five of the best deals in this fee-earners summer

1. Publicis Groupe’s buyout of Bartle Bogle Hegarty

Sector: Advertising
Transaction value: €100m (£79m) (reported estimate)
Date announced: 5 July

2. Dentsu’s acquisition of Aegis Group

Sector: Advertising
Value: £3.2bn
Date announced: 12 July

3. Co-operative Group’s acquisition of 632 branches from Lloyds Banking Group

Sector: Banking
Value: Up to £750m
Date announced: 19 July

4. Cheung Kong Infrastructure’s acquisition of Wales & West Utilities from a consortium including Macquarie Global Infrastructure Funds

Sector: Gas
Value: £645m
Date announced: 25 July

5. Cinven’s acquisition of Mercury Pharma from HgCapital

Sector: Private equity/generic pharmaceuticals
Value: £465m
Date announced:17 August