Linklaters takes top spot in Asia M&A tables
In keeping with its global performance, Linklaters' Asian team retained its number one position on number of deals, and elbowed out Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer to take top spot in terms of deal value.
The market saw an overall drop of 15.7 per cent, with legal advisers announcing £36.969bn of deals compared with £43.856bn the previous year. However, Linklaters bucked the trend, increasing its value of deals announced by 22 per cent.
The same was not true for rival Freshfields. Although the firm announced only two fewer deals, the value of those deals dropped 60 per cent from last year.
Sullivan & Cromwell broke into the top 15 this year, coming second in terms of value, despite announcing only four deals.
Of the local firms, Wong Partnership, Clifford Chance's new joint venture partner, came in tenth, announcing $1.319bn (£0.821bn) compared with $897.8m (£559m) worth of deals for Allen & Gledhill. But Allen & Gledhill was the most prolific deal announcer with 17 deals compared with the Wong Partnership's 14.
| Asia, excluding Japan, announced adviser ranking based on value 01/01/02-12/31/02 | ||||||||
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| Rank | Adviser | Value $bn | Value £bn | Mkt share | No of deals | |||
| 1 | Linklaters | 17.770 | 11.066 | 17.6 | 50 | |||
| 2 | Sullivan & Cromwell | 113.118 | 8.169 | 13.0 | 4 | |||
| 3 | Herbert Smith/Gleiss Lutz/Stibbe | 11.258 | 7.011 | 11.2 | 18 | |||
| 4 | Shearman & Sterling | 10.338 | 6.438 | 10.2 | 4 | |||
| 5 | Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer | 5.819 | 3.624 | 5.8 | 34 | |||
| 6 | Clifford Chance | 5.419 | 3.375 | 5.4 | 22 | |||
| 7 | Dewey Ballantine | 2.964 | 1.846 | 2.9 | 2 | |||
| 8 | Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom | 2.174 | 1.354 | 2.2 | 5 | |||
| 9 | Lovells | 1.500 | 0.934 | 1.5 | 1 | |||
| 10 | Wong Partnership | 1.319 | 0.821 | 1.3 | 14 | |||
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| Source: Thomson Financial | ||||||||
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