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Top firms for M&A deals revealed
A new analysis has highlighted the Australian firms that negotiated the biggest deals in the previous quarter.
Digital
According to a review by MergerMarket, Minter Ellison and Herbert Smith Freehills topped the Australasian rankings of M&A deals between January and March 2015.
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Herbert Smith Freehills had the highest value of deals for the period, coming in at US$15.89 billion, with Minter Ellison in second position with a deal value of US$9.69 billion.
Third in the rankings came Ashurst, which negotiated deals worth US$9.24 billion, while Allens was close behind at $8.48 billion.
In deal count terms, Minter Ellison handled the greatest number over the quarter with 13 to HSF’s 12.
In Asia-Pacific overall, deals worth US$171.6 billion were recorded, the highest value for a quarter on MergerMarket's records.
The consumer sector was the best performer in the region over the period, while the resources activity dropped to a five-year low.
“Driven by intra-regional activity, the Consumer sector saw US$48.4 billion-worth of deals leaping 145.8 per cent above Q1 2014’s value, and reaching the highest valued quarter on record,” the review report said.
“The Energy, Mining & Utilities sector suffered in Q1 2015, with a 47.8 per cent drop by value from US$22.3 billion to US$11.6 billion. The number of transactions saw the lowest quarterly number in five years with 56 deals, compared with 82 in Q1 2014.”
Worldwide, M&A activity remained robust over the period with 3,213 deals valued at US$719.1 billion.
While this result indicates a decline of 10.1 per cent on 2014’s fourth quarter, it represents a jump of 13.4 per cent on last year’s first quarter.
