Davis Polk & Wardwell and AZB & Partners have led the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) legal advisers league table in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region during H1 of 2020, based on deal value and volume, respectively, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.
Davis Polk & Wardwell advised on 20 deals worth $29.2bn, which is the highest value among all the advisers.
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AZB & Partners, which led in terms of volume for having advised on 40 deals worth $21.7bn during H1, took the second position in value terms.
Linklaters took the third position in terms of value with six deals worth $12.1bn.
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By GlobalDataCyril Amarchand Mangaldas got the second spot by volume with 39 deals worth $9.7bn. It was followed by Herbert Smith Freehills with 28 deals worth $7.1bn.
GlobalData financial deals analyst Aurojyoti Bose said: “AZB & Partners, despite advising on double the number of deals advised by Davis Polk & Wardwell, lost the top position by value to the latter.”
Even though the two firms advised on same number of big ticket deals, such as Facebook’s acquisition of 9.9% stake in Jio Platforms for $5.7bn and Public Investment Fund’s acquisition of 2.32% stake in Jio Platforms for $1.4bn, Davis Polk & Wardwell also advised on few more high value transactions such as the 58.com acquisition by a consortium of investors for $8.7bn.
Deal landscape in Asia Pacific in H1 2020
Deal activity in the Asia-Pacific region was relatively resilient compared to other regions during the Covid-19 hit first half of 2020.
The count of deals announced in the Asia Pacific region grew by 11.3% from 5,640 in H1 2019 to 6,278 in H1 2020, according to GlobalData’s Financial Deals Database.
Deal value also grew by 4.1% from $255.9bn in H1 2019 to $266.4bn in H1 2020.
Davis Polk & Wardwell, which led the Asia-Pacific deals league table in terms of deal value, figured at 11th position by value in the recently released global league table of top 20 M&A legal advisers by GlobalData. Similarly, AZB & Partners, which topped the Asia-Pacific league table by volume, took the 18th position in terms of volume in the global league table.
GlobalData’s league tables are based on the real-time tracking of thousands of company websites, advisory firm websites and other reliable sources available on the secondary domain. A dedicated team of analysts monitors all these sources to gather in-depth details for each deal, including adviser names.
To ensure further robustness to the data, the company also seeks submissions from leading advisers, through adviser submission forms on GlobalData’s website
